THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 


PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 


CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 


NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 


convenes the 


WORKING GROUP MEETING 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


ABRWH WORKING GROUP MEETING
 

ROCKY FLATS
 

The verbatim transcript of the Working Group 


Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held at the Marriott Cincinnati 


Airport, Hebron, Kentucky, on May 30, 2006. 

 

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 6 

C O N T E N T S
 

May 30, 2006 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 


DR. LEWIS WADE, DFO 


SUPER S ISSUE 11 


NEUTRON DOSE RECONSTRUCTION 70 


OTHER RADIONUCLIDES 105 


D&D WORK 125 


DATA RELIABILITY 183 


SAFETY CONCERNS 195 


COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 276 

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TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 


material is reproduced as read or spoken. 


In the following transcript: a dash (--) indicates 


an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 


sentence. An ellipsis (. . .) indicates halting speech 


or an unfinished sentence in dialogue or omission(s) of 


word(s) when reading written material. 


-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 


of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 


reported. 


-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 


the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 


available. 


-- "uh-huh" represents an affirmative response, and 


"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 


-- "*" denotes a spelling based on phonetics, 


without reference available. 


-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 


failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

 

 

 

4

 P A R T I C I P A N T S 


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 


Senior Science Advisor 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 


Washington, DC 


MEMBERSHIP
 

GIBSON, Michael H. 


President 


Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 


Local 5-4200 


Miamisburg, Ohio 


GRIFFON, Mark A. 


President 


Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 


Salem, New Hampshire 


MUNN, Wanda I. 


Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 


Richland, Washington 

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PARTICIPANTS
 

BEHLING, HANS, SC&A 


BISTLINE, ROBERT, SC&A 


BUCHANAN, RON, SC&A 


DEMAIORI, TONY, PETITIONER 


ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH 


FALK, ROGER, ORAU 


FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A 


HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 


JESSEN, KARIN, ORAUT 


LANGSTED, JIM, CHEW & ASSOCS. 


LIPSZTEIN, JOYCE, SC&A 


LITTLE, CRAIG, ORAUT 


MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 


MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 


NETON, JIM, NIOSH 


POTTER, GENE, CHEW & ASSOCS. 


ROBINSON, AL, ORAUT 


RUTHERFORD, LAVON, NIOSH 


ULSH, BRANT, NIOSH 


WARDER, AMY, CONG. BEAUPREZ 

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P R O C E E D I N G S
 

(10:15 a.m.) 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
 

DR. WADE: Again, welcome all. This is Lew Wade. 


This is a meeting of the working group of the 


Advisory Board. This is the working group that 


looks at a variety of issues including 


individual dose reconstruction procedures 


review and site profile review. Because this 


group has worked so diligently on the Rocky 


Flats site profile the full Board asked them to 


take on the task of pursuing the remaining 


issues that relate to Rocky Flats as it relates 


to the SEC petition and there have been a 


number of meetings trying to work those issues 


down to the bare minimum so that this working 


group can bring back findings and possibly a 


recommendation to the Advisory Board. That’s 


what we’re here to do today. Around the table 


we’re going to introduce ourselves but before 


we do general introductions I would ask if any 


members of the Board are on the telephone, if 


you would identify yourselves. 


 MR. GIBSON: Mike Gibson is here on the Board. 

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No conflicts with Rocky. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. No other Board members? We 


have three Board members. We have Mark, Mike 


and Wanda. We don’t have a quorum so we can 


certainly do our working group business. Let’s 


start by going around the table here and simply 


identifying ourselves. And then we can come 


back and do our conflict of interest discussion 


briefly once we’ve completed the general 


introductions. Again this is Lew Wade. I work 


for NIOSH and support the Advisory Committee. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And this is Joe Fitzgerald. 


I’m with the SC&A audit team. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Mark Griffon with the Advisory 


Board. 


 DR. BISTLINE: Bob Bistline with SC&A Advisory. 


Used to be at Rocky Flats for 39 years. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Arjun Makhijani, SC&A. 


 DR. MAURO: John Mauro, SC&A. 


 DR. NETON: Jim Neton, NIOSH. 


 MS. MUNN: Wanda Munn, Advisory Board. 


 MS. HOWELL: Emily Howell, HHS. 


 MS. JESSEN: Karin Jessen, ORAU team. 


 DR. ULSH: Brant Ulsh with NIOSH. 


 DR. WADE: Now, let’s start and identify other 

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members of the SC&A team that might be on the 


telephone. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Joyce Lipsztein. 


 DR. WADE: Welcome, Joyce. 


DR. LIPSZTEIN: SC&A. 


 DR. BEHLING: Hans Behling, SC&A. 


 DR. WADE: Good morning, Hans. 


 DR. BEHLING: Good morning. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Ron Buchanan, SC&A. 


 DR. WADE: Good morning, Ron. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Good morning. 


 DR. WADE: Anybody else from SC&A? 


 (No response) 


 DR. WADE: How about NIOSH OM? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: LaVon Rutherford, NIOSH. 


 DR. WADE: Good morning. 

 MR. FALK: This is Roger Falk and I’m with 

ORAU. 

 DR. WADE: Okay. 

 MR. LANGSTED: This is Jim Langsted. I’m with 


ORAU. 


 MR. ROBINSON: Al Robinson. I’m with ORAU. 


 DR. WADE: Anybody else? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Inaudible) 


 DR. WADE: All right. Any other federal 

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employees on the line? 


(No response) 


DR. WADE: Anyone who --


 MS. WARDER: Amy -- Amy Warder with the office 


of Congressman Beauprez. 


 DR. WADE: Good morning. 


 MS. WARDER: Good morning. 


 DR. WADE: Anyone else on the line who would 


like to identify themselves? It’s not 


required. 


(No response) 


DR. WADE: Okay. Then let’s spend a moment 


just having the leaders of the -- the 


appropriate organizations identify if any of 


their members are conflicted. John Mauro for 


SC&A? 


 DR. MAURO: No one in SC&A is conflicted on 


Rocky Flats. 


 DR. WADE: Just --


 DR. MAURO: That includes myself, John Mauro, 


Joe Fitzgerald, Arjun Makhijani, Bob -- oh, 


excuse -- forgive me, please, Bob. This man 


has recently joined SC&A as part of our team. 


Thank you very much, Bob. Bob, of course, is 


conflicted for his many years working for 

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Rocky. 

 DR. WADE: I understand. 

 DR. MAURO: My apologies. 

 DR. WADE: Not a problem. And we’re pleased to 

have Bob here. I was chatting with Bob 


earlier. I mean what this Board and this 


working group is about is getting it right and 


we welcome people who have knowledge. We 


certainly think it’s important that conflicts 


be identified but that those voices not be 


silenced. So Bob, welcome. We’re pleased to 


have you here. Brant, your team? 


 DR. ULSH: Gene Potter, are you on the line? 


(No response) 


DR. ULSH: Okay, he’s --


 MR. POTTER: Yes, yes. I’m -- Gene Potter’s on 


the line. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. We’ve got -- from the ORAU 


team we’ve got Gene Potter, Roger Falk and Jim 


Langsted, all of whom have conflicts at Rocky 


Flats. They -- Similar to Bob they worked 


there for a number of years. No one from the 


NIOSH team has any conflicts. 


 DR. WADE: And I assume the Board members have 


no conflicts on Rocky Flats? 

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 MS. MUNN: None here. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Mark? 


 MR. GRIFFON: No. 


 DR. WADE: It’s all yours. 


SUPER S ISSUE


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. Okay. I think we --


we sent around a matrix, the latest matrix from 


the Rocky Flats site profile review, and it’s 


dated April 22nd, 2006 for those people on the 


phone call. Really, and it tracks pretty well 


with the -- I’ve come up with like five major 


topics that I think we’re going to cover and 


the matrix sort of goes along in this order. 


The first one being Super S plutonium question; 


the second one neutron dose reconstruction and 


several other matrix items related to that so I 


thought I’d lump them into one -- one item on 


the agenda. A third item is other 


radionuclides and that includes the americium 


question. A fourth item is data reliability 


which includes both questions on database as 


well as these more specific I guess case 


follow-up questions that we’ve been pursuing. 


And then the fifth -- the last one is kind of a 


new item that came up at the last Advisory 

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Board meeting which was the question on D&D 


workers, how dose reconstruction would be done 


for D&D workers. So I think we’re going to 


start with discussion on Super S plutonium and 


I think that where we left it was that SC&A was 


going to follow up on the TIB freon model, 


looking at the design cases and the USTR cases 


a little more in depth. I think they had done 


a general review of that but I think they were 


going to do more follow-up on that. And I 


guess I can turn it over to SC&A unless -- 


unless Brant or Jim have comments. I think 


it’s really in SC&A’s court on this one. 


 DR. MAURO: Yeah, I guess over the last few 


weeks Bob and Joyce have been looking very 


closely into the lab exchange and lab analysis. 


I guess I -- I would like to turn that over to 


-- to start it off. Joyce really has taken the 


lead and Bob came in and hooked up with the 


team and -- to pick up from where we left off. 


So with that, Joyce, if you could provide a -- 


an overview of the follow-up investigations, 


maybe even starting a little earlier. Sort of 


set the table where we left off at the last 


meeting, get everybody oriented, sort of on the 

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same page and then pick it up from there and 


how the -- your investigations progressed and 


how Bob and you -- where Bob and you are at 


this point in time in that process. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Okay. One of the things that I 


started doing was to look at the data from 


Rocky Flats that are part of the uranium -- 


U.S. Transuranic and Uranium Registry. So I 


looked at several of the cases and on those 


cases there are some bioassay data and the 


autopsy data. So I looked at several of them 


to see if the -- the model that NIOSH presented 


for us, Super Type S, which is an -- an 


empirical model, would be claimant favor on 


those cases. Other -- Saying it in another 


way, to see if the predicted or the -- or the 


quantities would be higher than the ones or -- 


or similar to the ones on the autopsy data. So 


far all the cases that I have analyzed -- I 


didn’t analyze all of them. So far if you im-- 


if you use the high fired approach I always get 


predicted quantities that are higher than the 


quantities from the autopsy data. I am finding 


some problems with the bioassay data that is 


presented on the Transuranic Registry and I 

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will need to look at -- at this then. Like for 


example I -- I got into a bioassay table where 


I had a urinary excretion with a date after the 


person died so I have -- I have to look to see 


how -- how well in another place the bioassay 


data that is on the -- the registry. But I 


think that most if -- the predictions from the 


high fired model are so much higher than what 


we find on autopsy that I think this model will 


envelope everything of problems. Now, we, I 


think then Mark develop of this also. We want 


to input the -- the data for the cases itself. 


If -- If you apply of course the -- the 


empirical model it -- it’s exactly what you get 


from the -- the curves that were shown. And 


then I think Mark can -- probably more about 


that because I didn’t get into exactly all of 


the -- the -- the database but some of the data 


from the people that were used to -- to devise 


the models, not all the bioassay agree that 


were used so one is wondering why this 


happened. And I think that’s where we stand 


for now. 


 MR. GRIFFON: What Joyce -- I -- I went with 


the cases, mainly the -- well, the fired cases 

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and also there’s -- there’s I think two or 


three other cases that are design cases. And I 


-- I tried to look -- well, let me just -- this 


-- I mean part of what led me to this was when 


I looked at the spreadsheets provided it was 


clear in all the fired cases that the in vivo 


counting started right away and they did counts 


daily right after the incident. On the urine 


side often that wasn’t the case at least for 


the data provided in the spreadsheets and I 


thought that was rather peculiar so I tracked 


back. Without having identified data I had to 


kind of do it detective style and identify high 


points and find the right exposure ID and sort 


it by that. But I -- I identified for several 


of the cases where they were they were missing 


a large chunk of data at the beginning, a large 


chunk of urinalysis data. Case 825 in 


particular since that is the bounding case, 


that was missing a big chunk of data from the 


date -- date up to the accident, 10/19/65 ‘til 


2/10/66 I think if my -- if my notes are right 


here. But there was a large chunk of data 


missing. So I just wondered was that -- on 


that -- I think on that case in the spreadsheet 

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there is actually a note saying that all the 


data wasn’t retrieved and I just wondered why ­

- why this was and at first I thought, well, 


825, 872 and 934 -- or 825 and 872, those two 


cases in particular were chelation cases so I 


thought maybe that’s why the early data was 


excluded because it had a spike in the data and 


-- and you want it to fit the long-term 


component or whatever. But -- But then I -- I 


just -- I just wanted maybe an explanation from 


NIOSH ORAU team on why that, you know, was that 


intentional or was that just that you didn’t 


have the right data together. Also I -- I --


and I -- I -- I did this -- I tried to look at 


the intakes calculated from the urinalysis and 


the lung data. And in TIB 49 they say you 


modify the parameters, you did this empirical 


fit to basically make the best fit but also to 


-- so that the calculated intakes would be 


basically the same from the urinalysis or the 


in vivo. And if I use all the data on these 


cases I get a slightly dif-- slightly -- a more 


-- a more different intake calculated which I 


guess is no surprise really but -- and it 


actually ends up with a lower intake for 

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whatever that -- that means. But I -- the main 


question I have was why was that data excluded 


and was that -- that pattern sort of consistent 


with all the cases. Did the chelation case -- 


was the chelation effective basically? Because 


I was hearing sort of maybe mixed stories on 


that whether the chelation did anything at all. 


And so maybe I’ll just ask that. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah, I think Roger Falk is on the 


phone --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: -- and he should be -- he’s in the 


best position to answer. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Right. 


 MR. FALK: Yes, this is Roger Falk. The --


The -- The practice is that if a case was 


actually chelated that a person should not use 


the urine data which is less than 90 days past 


the date of the last chelation because that is 


actually perturbed urine data and therefore 


should not be used for the modeling purposes. 


And that’s why -- that’s why we -- that’s why 


we excluded the urine data that could have been 


potentially affected by the actual chelation 


process. Also for a couple of the cases I did 

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not have all of the person’s urine data 


available, and that was especially true for the 


case 872. Since the Super Type S is mainly the 


lung retention I was focused on getting the -- 


I was focused on getting the complete setup of 


the lung data. But the only data that I was 


really concerned about was the modern long-term 


urine data that I did have on the data floor. 


So it was more of a practicality as to whether 


it was useful especially during the early 


development of the models to try to get all of 


the early urine data, and the choice that I 


made was no, that was not necessary because it 


is a lung retention issue that we focused on. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I mean I -- I do -- what 


you said, that 90-day thing doesn’t quite fit 


with the three cases but case 825 actually the 


90-day idea -- notion that you -- you indicated 


seems to be what -- what went on. Case 934 is 


a chelation case though and the -- well, that ­

- that may be consistent, too. And then like 


you said, 872, it -- it was just a question of 


not being able to recover the early data 


because 872 was the most -- the one that I 


looked at first and the data in the spreadsheet 

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you used didn’t start ‘til 7/10/1980. And 


there were -- there -- there were probably 


about 50 data points prior to that from 


10/17/65 so that’s what kind of prompted my 


looking into this. But I don’t disagree with 


what you said about the long-term component 


being the critical one. I -- I guess the 


other thing this brought me back to was -- was 


the -- just how did -- did we -- how did you 


arrive at the case selection. And I did 


actually in looking at this it did allow me to 


confirm that all these six fired cases that I 


looked at seemed to have no previous -- they 


seemed to be clean cases prior to the fire, at 


least where I could find data. Some had no 


data before the fire but the ones that I looked 


at did seem to be “clean cases”. They had 


zeros or less than MDA prior to the fire so 


that would support your -- your assertion about 


that which is good. That makes sense. But I 


didn’t know otherwise how these six were 


determined out of the 25 or so that you said 


had high lung burdens. And I don't know if you 


can shed any more light on those. Were these 


the -- these weren’t necessarily the highest 

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exposed; they were just the best clean cases 


that you had? 


 MR. FALK: They were the best clean cases and 


they also participated in the medical 


monitoring program -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, later? 


 MR. FALK: -- later on so that we had the 


modern lung counts and we had the modern urine 


data. And -- And the modern lung counts was 


the most crucial because then we got -- then we 


got the long-term retention profile and that 


was essential. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: I -- I have another question 


for you. When I look at the autopsy cases 


there are some people that did not participate 


in the -- were not contaminated in the 


plutonium fire. In fact they dealt with 


(unintelligible). And when I use the high 


fired plutonium model I always get the amount 


in organs that are higher than the ones from 


autopsy but if instead of using high fired 


plutonium model I use simply Type S plutonium 


sometimes I get lower amounts in -- depending 


on the scenario of course, if I interpret the 


bioassay data I -- sometimes I get lower 

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quantities in lung than they are from the 


autopsy data. So are we going to treat all 


plutonium cases as high fired or how -- or 


what’s the proposal of NIOSH? 


 DR. NETON: Yes, we will if we don’t know any 


better we’re going to treat them all as Super S 


type material. It’s the issue we’re dealing 


with, not only Rocky now but other sites. But 


it’s -- it’s -- it does seem to be that it 


doesn’t necessarily have to be high fired from 


a fire. I mean we’re seeing that and we 


noticed that as well in the autopsy cases. 


 DR. ULSH: Or it could be not this particular 


fire but another fire event. 


 DR. NETON: Or whatever but, you know, if -- 


we’re going to default for these cases when 


it’s claimant favorable to the high fired Super 


S material. 


 DR. MAURO: One of the -- this is John Mauro. 


One of the subjects we talked about at an 


earlier meeting was that it wasn’t only 


necessarily the fires that produced it so -- so 


there actually were operations going on where 


the potential to produce high fired plutonium 


was also. So I think it’s -- 

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 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 


 DR. MAURO: -- true. 


 DR. NETON: It’s just not high fired any more. 


I think it’s just the Super Soluble form of 


plutonium that, you know, one sees it at -- at 


Mayak and other places. It’s -- It’s a 


reality. 


 DR. MAURO: Now, would they also -- I'm sorry. 


Would they also in those circumstances, I know 


the fire -- we’re dealing with these very small 


particle size distributions that were a 


fraction of a micron. Is that also the case 


for operations or is there really a clean 


divide between the particle size, EMAD, for the 


high fired, versus let’s say, operations? Was 


there a clean distinction there or is -- are we 


in a situation where the high fired -- we’re 


actually moving in a direction where the high 


fired plutonium was known to be the default? 


 DR. NETON: The high fired chemical form but 


not necessarily the particle size distribution. 


Right now I think our particle size 


distribution if a person is involved in the 


fire is .3 microns. I'm not sure. I think 


it’s .3 microns. But we were not intending to 

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default to smaller particle size unless we knew 


the person was involved in -- in the fire. 


Right now our default for the normal operations 


of the plant is for -- as is for other sites 


unless -- I haven’t seen anything to the 


contrary on that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Do you know if you have enough 


information to determine whether a person was 


or was not exposed to Super S or is that going 


to be based on the --


 DR. NETON: Super S is going to be on -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- urinalysis data itself or -- 


 DR. NETON: Well, the Super S is just another 


one of the -- looking at other sites we have 


three default solubility classes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: But Rocky Flats we have four 


default. And whichever one gives you the 


largest -- the larger dose to the organ -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: So you’re applying it across the 


board you’re saying? 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. That wasn’t clear. 


 DR. NETON: We’re not going to triage them 


based on whether they’re -- 

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 MR. GRIFFON: I thought you said unless you 


knew otherwise. 


 DR. NETON: I’m talking about the particle 


size. That’s a different issue. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


DR. NETON: The fire we know is a false 


particle size. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Particle size. Oh, for 


solubility. 


 DR. NETON: Solubility we’re going to apply. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Got you. 


DR. BISTLINE: So you’re using .5 micron for 


the particle size default? 


 DR. NETON: I believe that’s the case at Rocky 


right now, yes. 


 DR. ULSH: I think so. That’s the ICRP 


default. 


 DR. NETON: Well, you can -- unless we know 


otherwise. Now, that’s, you know, depending 


upon the situation. If we get data that --


that indicate that there are smaller particle 


size distributions for other operations we’d 


certainly use them but right now when I –- I 


haven’t looked at the profile awhile but -- 


 DR. ULSH: But am I correct that that’s not as 

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critical an issue when you’re starting with 


urine samples? 


 DR. NETON: Right. When you start with urine 


data which we believe we have most people from, 


then particle size is not an issue. 


DR. BISTLINE: Well, I think it’s -- I think 


it’s claimant favorable, any approach that 


you’re taking in terms of -- in treating the 


high fired data because there are areas in 


production processes where you have a mixture 


and there’s certainly an indication that 


there’s a mixture. You have some -- some high 


fired as well as -- and case number 1228 is a 


good example of that over-pressure condition 


that was -- that was brought out in 049. And I 


think that’s true of -- of a lot of cases that 


-- if you look at it carefully you’ll see that 


it fits that profile. 


 DR. MAURO: Yeah, this is John. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: I couldn’t hear anything. 


 DR. MAURO: Go on, Joyce. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: I couldn’t hear anything that 


was said now. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oops. 


 MS. MUNN: Oh, dear. 

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DR. NETON: Are these microphones live on our 


end of the table? I assumed they were. 


DR. LIPSZTEIN: I can hear you perfectly, Jim, 


but I couldn’t hear --


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. We’ll have to make sure we 


lean toward the table and speak up. Can you 


hear me, Joyce? 


(No response) 


 DR. MAURO: Try it again. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Joyce, can you hear me? 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. We’ll just have to be 


careful to speak up a little louder and toward 


the mike. Sorry about that. Bob, do you want 


to maybe repeat what you said if you can 


remember it, repeat what you said and -- 


DR. BISTLINE: Well, one of the -- one of the 


points that I was making was that I feel -- 


feel pretty comfortable that the -- the 


approach that NIOSH is using with regard to the 


use of high fired oxide is making those 


calculations both directions using S as well as 


Super S, are -- are -- are a good approach for 


conservatism for -- for the workers because 


some of the operations -- the foundry 

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operations, calcining operations and so forth 


that workers were involved in -- involved both 


there was an appearance that there may have 


been some high fired mixed in with the -- with 


the little, slightly more soluble form and the 


case 1 -- 1228, if you look at it, it was a 


case that there was no fire involved but there 


was an over-pressure and certainly fall -- it 


fits that pattern. And I know other sites have 


seen some similar types of profiles in -- in 


their -- in their workers. 


 DR. ULSH: I think that’s a good argument for 


why we’re just going to default the Super S 


because like you said, I mean there are other 


situations that could lead to exposure to Super 


S and sorting that out would just be a -- a 


nightmare so... 


 MR. GRIFFON: That wasn’t clear to me earlier 


but maybe -- maybe it was to you guys. That --


That -- That’s good to hear. Are there any 


other questions on Super S? I think what 


remains -- I think that Joyce and Bob are going 


to finish up and provide us with a written 


piece on the analysis, right? Your comparison 


with the USTR cases and -- 

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 DR. MAURO: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Is that correct? 


 DR. MAURO: Well, before we talk about the 


closeout, there was one issue that emerged. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Uh-huh. 


 DR. MAURO: I think it was a week ago yesterday 


we had a call. I missed yesterday’s call. But 


Bob, you -- you pointed something out about the 


actual empirical measurements that were made on 


the autopsy data and it was your -- and you 


were personally involved in some of that. And 


it was your experience that there was a fairly 


large uncertainty in the measured values that 


was -- and as a result I think everybody has 


been operating on the -- on the premise that 


while we’ve got some very nice numbers from the 


autopsy data and then we use those as our 


benchmark. Okay, here’s a number. How do we 


predict against that number? But Bob pointed 


out that there was a pretty wide uncertainty on 


some of these measured values and during the 


conversation, Bob, you -- you have indicated 


that it was your sense at the time that there 


was enough conservatism built into the protocol 


that accounted for let’s say the -- the 

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significant amount of uncertainty. You -- You 


indicated you were going to look into that a 


little bit. 


 DR. BISTLINE: Yeah. Yes, John. Just -- Just 


to point out, one of the cases that was not 


included in this but -- and -- and I think 


rightfully so for the most part is -- is the 


highest case that -- that occurred at Rocky 


Flats in the 1965 fire. And in this particular 


case the -- the individual had a -- a very high 


deposition, lung deposition at the time, died 


in 1973, and -- and in the autop-- just prior ­

- the last lung count that was done on him 


showed -- showed 107 nanocuries in his lungs. 


But when we did the autopsy and analyzed the 


tissue in the lungs this individual had 222 


nanocuries of plutonium and 48 -- 47 nanocuries 


of americium in his lungs at the time of his 


death so -- so, you know, there’s quite a bit 


of disparity here in the -- in the count. And 


yet looking at this I would say that the 


approach that NIOSH is using with this 


empirical format is -- has a large enough 


uncertainty associated to it to -- to make it 


conservative. And I -- I feel fairly 

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comfortable with it so in -- in some cases we 


may be over -- may be over-predicting the 


amount considerably but in other cases there is 


enough disparity in -- in the analysis that -- 


from what the lung count indicated and what the 


autopsy data indicated that -- that we -- we 


can’t close that gap too much or we may -- we 


may -- may not be as conservative as we thought 


we were. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. So I think SC&A is 


still going to provide a written piece on this, 


right? 


 DR. MAURO: Let’s -- Let’s talk about that a 


little bit. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. MAURO: We are -- our -- our overarching 


plan is not to deliver the official report, 


which is the review of the evaluation report, 


until after the June Board meeting. That would 


be our official work product because I think 


there’s a lot of word-smithing, a lot of work 


to be done, lots of issues to be covered. But 


we did talk about I guess trying to bring to 


the table closure on at least some issues in 


some form. I’d like to talk a little bit 

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about, you know -- really to talk to Bob and 


then Joyce, you know, Joe. Right now are we -- 


are we -- are we in a position now where we can 


start to put together white papers? I’m not 


even sure what you would call it. Prior to the 


meeting, and perhaps have the working group, 


deliver something to the working group along 


the lines of the conversations we’re having 


right now where you’d be in a position to 


report back to the Board for the Washington 


meeting. I’m not quite sure how do we bring 


this -- this home without the actual having the 


-- the official work product delivered. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. MAURO: I mean I guess I -- you know, what 


would you -- what would you like? 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm not sure either. I -- I 


mean I was thinking more of a, you know, we’ve 


had responses going back and forth in our work 


group process and if this could still be just 


considered another response to matrix item 


number one in a Word document. But I -- I 


guess it’s leading us to your final product 


which is your review report or your evaluation 


report. Hopefully where, you know -- so that 

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we don’t have surprises in that evaluation 


report. 


 DR. MAURO: So this would be a work in progress 


though. Is that what you’re suggesting? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, a draft. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: In terms of evaluation. I 


mean --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. In terms -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: It’s really our evaluation at 


this point in time. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And that would proceed to be 


included in this overall ER, evaluation that we 


put together after the meeting so I think it 


would be --


 MR. GRIFFON: Just so you’re not saving 


everything until the final report. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So NIOSH has some sense and the 


work group has some sense of the direction. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And where we’re at on each issue. 


So an interim report would be great for -- for 


-- and I think you’re probably going to be in a 


position to do that on several of these major 

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topics that we discussed. 


 DR. WADE: On the Board’s agenda we have -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: At least a few of them. 


 DR. WADE: On the Board’s agenda we have a 


block of time allocated for Rocky Flats SEC 


update so there’s time. I think the more you 


can bring to -- to further the discussion with 


the process I think the better. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Mark, the -- the -- the matrix 


item, the really technical items, maybe the 


format -- this is the first time we would be 


kind of doing a piece for an evaluation report 


review that comes from a matrix item. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: And maybe -- maybe a format -- 


thinking about it as a -- as a technical 


memorandum on a matrix, corresponding to a 


matrix item. Because that’s what it is really. 


It’s a -- It’s not a white paper that’s 


definitive on a subject that covers everything 


because NIOSH has done so much work on it. So 


I would hesitate for it to be thought of as a 


white paper. 


 DR. MAURO: Yeah, I -- I --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: But maybe a technical 

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memorandum of SC&A’s review. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: That was kind of my fault. 


Not a white paper but really an update in term 


-- a report in the form of a memorandum would 


be fine. That would keep it in the context 


that we’ve done in the work group before. 


 MS. MUNN: Certainly you need -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Same -- Same thing there, yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. Any technical report that 


indicates agreement -- closure on a specific 


major guideline would certainly be greatly 


appreciated here. 


 DR. ULSH: All right. Well, that was my 


question. Is -- Is -- Is that what you’re 


talking about, John? Limit it to those issues 


where you feel that we can close or is this -- 


 DR. MAURO: Well, yeah. I’d like to hear a 


little bit more from Bob and from Joyce on -- 


you folks feel you’re done I mean other than 


let’s say assembling material? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: She’s done three or four cases 


so there’s certainly more on her plate. 


 DR. MAURO: Okay. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: But I think we’re progressing 


pretty well. I think, Joyce, you were saying 

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maybe the end of next week we would be pretty 


close. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes, but I still have a lot to 


do. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: So I don't know. One of the 


things that is bothering me is the bioassay 


data from the uranium (unintelligible) data 


that is on the -- I think it’s from the ORAU O-


drive, there is a part on the Rocky Flats 


uranium transuranium registry. Is this 


bioassay data, can we trust it? Has ORAU 


looked at it? Because it’s bothering me a lot 


that if I -- I -- I went into one of the cases 


and there was a urine of bioassay value that 


was taken on a date after the person was dead 


so I -- I don’t know how to -- if -- if I 


should trust it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I don't know to what extent 


you’ve val-- you went in and validated the 


USTUR. 


 DR. NETON: Are you talking about the USTUR 


data? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


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it was given to us from the USTUR. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. 


 DR. NETON: So we did not go through and -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: -- go through and do a reliability 


check or whatever on it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You’re using that sort of as a 


confirmation of your --


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- a check on your model, right? 


Yeah. So the answer is no, Joyce, I don’t 


think they’ve --


 DR. NETON: We haven’t explored those -- those 


data points at all. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And I don’t know what process 


USTUR has for quality control for their case 


data. 


 DR. NETON: I don't know. I mean we can find 


out and certainly -- Tony James provided those 


to us. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: For this program. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: In light of Joyce’s question it 


might be useful to have a couple of -- a 


document from Tony James saying what they did 

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to validate the data so, you know, so we have 


some confidence in that procedure. Or listing 


some documents. 


 DR. NETON: I’m not sure they’ve done anything 


to be honest with you. I mean these cases were 


put out there for people to look at. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, I see. 


 DR. NETON: We -- You know, we didn’t use them 


in our model. They’re there to do comparisons. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I see. 


 DR. NETON: And now if we -- you know, we -- we 


never --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. 


 DR. NETON: -- purported that these were going 


to be used --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: -- for anything other than a -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: A check. 


DR. NETON: -- a check. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: And -- And so one asks -- asks the 


question how much do we go down that path then 


to validate data; then we have to validate 


another set. 


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say, Joyce, if you find a lot of these problems 


or, you know, maybe keep note of these concerns 


but the answer is no, the -- ORAU didn’t -- and 


I don't know that they should have but they 


didn’t attempt to validate that. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Just one --


 MR. GRIFFON: And as Joe said -- go ahead. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Just one other thing. On the ­

- On -- You provided together with OTIB 49 a 


draft approach to those (unintelligible) for 


super type S material and there is a table here 


comparing lung and liver estimates through 


autopsy data. Is it possible to get which 


cases you got this, from which cases? 


DR. ULSH: I think we had talked about that 


after the Y-12 conference call. However, they 


all kind of run together now. Joe, were you 


guys going to send over -- I can't remember 


what the action was. They were going to -- I 


think you were going to send over a list of 


ICD-9 codes that you were interested in and we 


were going to tell you the case numbers? Am I 


confusing a couple of issues or -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: No, actually you did send over 


the codes, the general codes and Joyce, you’ve 

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got the codes I think, and we’re going to -- I 


think Brant’s right. You were going to select 


which ones. 


 DR. ULSH: And then we pulled all the Rocky 


cases with those ICD codes. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: At least I can get a list of them. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: I don’t honestly -- there’s a 


table there with some autopsy data. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: No, no. There was a table of 


codes for the different cancer types and the -- 


the notion was to select from those codes which 


ones we want the data for. 


 DR. ULSH: That was in OTIB-5 I think, lists 


the ICD-9 codes and cancer types. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think you’re talking about the 


Super S. She’s talking about the Super S. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yeah, I’m talking about the 


Super S. 


MR. GRIFFON: It’s called the Super S. 


DR. LIPSZTEIN: There is a code, Super S, the 


ratio of lung estimates to autopsy measurements 


and the ratio of liver estimates to autopsy 


measurements and --


 DR. NETON: Is that --

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 DR. LIPSZTEIN: -- because I don't know from 


which data they took, which list. 


 DR. NETON: It’s not in -- well, there’s TIB-49 


and then there’s a supplement to TIB-49 that we 


intend to use.


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Exactly, yes. It’s on the 


supplement. 


 DR. NETON: Okay. I don't remember -- 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: That’s when you -- you tried to 


build, when you were building that the -- the ­

- the Super S assumption is claimant favorable 


so you are comparing autopsy data with the 


estimate. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Super S. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: And I don't know from which 


cases they were taken. 


DR. NETON: That was -- That was a handout I 


think at -- at a -- at a --


 MR. GRIFFON: At the working group meeting. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It’s called approach to dose 


reconstruction for super type S material. 


 DR. NETON: That was a presentation. It’s not 


part of any official document that we’ve 


generated. But I can -- I can -- we can find 

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that table and I can -- we can definitely get 


you the numbers or the cases that were -- 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Okay. 


 DR. NETON: That was -- That was one of the 


last slides I presented at the Boston working 


group meeting but to my knowledge it was not 


incorporated into any of our -- our procedures. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And Joyce, you wanted to know 


from what cases that table was derived? Is 

that --

 DR. NETON: Yeah. 

 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes. 

 DR. NETON: We can do that, yeah. I -- I 

guess I was confused because it wasn’t in any 


document that we have. It was something I 


presented. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Is it table -- which table 


is it, Joyce? 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: It’s the -- It’s the -- It’s 


table 2. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Table 2, I got it. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: The approach to dose 


reconstruction for super type S material. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. We -- I got it here, 


yeah. I had to find it on my computer. 

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Super S. 


 DR. NETON: Yeah, we can get you those numbers. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. So we still got some 


closeout to do with the comparisons but we 


think that probably by the Board meeting you’ll 


have an interim report or technical memo 


related to this subject on Super S; is that -- 


 DR. NETON: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Is that fair? 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: But I didn’t hear Bob say 


anything about the uncertainties on the -- on 


the measurements. 


 MR. GRIFFON: He did -- He did mention it a 


little. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I thought he was talking to the 


other case. 


 DR. BISTLINE: I didn’t say -- say -- Yeah, I 


really -- Yeah, I -- I still feel fairly 


confident in the -- the other organs as well 


that were -- that were -- that the model is -- 


is probably overestimating and is -- is 


claimant favorable. 


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discussion in this memorandum about the 


uncertainties and measurements? 


 DR. BISTLINE: I think --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: That’s all I want. 


DR. BISTLINE: Okay. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: In your work with Joyce will 


you address this question because it’s come up 


and I think if we’re going to put something to 


bed than all the issues that have come up -- 


 DR. BISTLINE: Joyce --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- be put to bed. 


 DR. BISTLINE: Joyce, you were -- you were 


planning on addressing that, too, weren’t you? 


The --


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes. 


 DR. BISTLINE: -- other organs as well? 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes. I’m doing -- what I’m 


doing now is liver and bone which I think is 


the most important organs for our plutonium. 


 DR. BISTLINE: Correct. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: And so that’s what I’m trying 


to do is liver, bone and lungs. That’s the 


three systemic organs that I’m testing. And I 


think that if it works for those three organs 


it’s okay. I’m a little bit concerned about 

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the thoracic but I -- I have to take another 


look at the thoracic corrections 


(unintelligible). But for all the others I can 


-- I’m pretty comfortable with it. 


 DR. ULSH: Just to clarify again. What you’re 


talking about --


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: I’m -- I’m talking about the 


(unintelligible) adjustment corrections for the 


thoracic region which is 49-plus the draft. 


There is an adjustment factor for the GI tract 


and there is adjustment factor for systemic 


organs and there is an adjustment factor for 


extra-thoracic. 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: And I -- I didn’t check the 


extra-thoracic yet. 


 DR. ULSH: Just to step back for just a second 


though. The products that you’re talking 


about, John, the interim evaluations I think 


they’ve been called. Super S might be one of 


them and there might be others. Are these 


issues that we agree that we can come to -- 


that we’ve come to closure on or are these 


other issues, too, or what? 


 DR. MAURO: My objective -- My objective --

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and I guess this is really out for discussion ­

- is that the Super S issue is, as we can hear, 


has a lot of sub-elements to it. And as I --


as I’m hearing it a lot of those sub-elements 


have been put to bed. However, there are 


certain sub-elements that Joyce is still 


looking at which may very well be put to bed 


within a week. I don't know. So at a minimum 


-- at a minimum we will be able to deliver a 


status report that will come in written form to 


the working group shortly that will identify 


exactly where our position is yes, closed out. 


Issue -- Sub-issue number one, whate-- 


whatever they are ‘cause there sounds like 


there’s some texture here -- 


 DR. ULSH: Right. 


 DR. MAURO: -- that -- and -- but -- where we 


can say right now yes, we agree. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 DR. MAURO: Then the methodology you proposed 


does the trick. But there are other areas that 


I’m hearing Joyce that would like to do a 


little bit more work. Sounds like extra-


thoracic region, the GI tract; she mentioned 


one other that she’s still checking. I don't 

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know, you know. My objective quite frankly is 


to be able to say here’s a full list of issues 


and sub-issues associated with the high fired 


plutonium. Here’s what we did to check them 


and here’s what we found out. And maybe I’ll 


be at the end saying we concur in the 


methodology. It is claimant favorable and 


scientifically plausible and -- and just move 


down each one of them. Places that we either 


have not had adequate time to check out or 


there -- we still have some questions, maybe 


things just don’t seem to make -- ring true, 


we’ll point that out also. I hope those are to 


the minimum. That’ll be the next thing we 


deliver to the working group. Joe, please, if 


you think that way of looking at it is -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I think we might very 


well say that there’s a specific piece of 


information that in the process of revealing it 


we discover we need but, you know, I think this 


is a process of converging. I think what we’re 


saying is we’re converging on this issue. We 


just want to account for how far that’s gone. 


And we want to make sure the Board’s aware of 


that. 

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DR. NETON: I think we ought to be careful. 


I’m -- I’m hearing now -- 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: I --


 DR. NETON: -- in principle people are -- 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: I have -- I have another 


question for Jim, for NIOSH. What about the 


lymph nodes? Hello? 


 DR. NETON: Yes, this is Jim. I’m thinking. A 


three-day weekend. We -- The lymph nodes are 


included in -- as part of the lung model, are 


they not? 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: No. 


 DR. NETON: Which lymph nodes are you talking 


about? 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: The -- The one -- one -- you 


put the -- 0049 --


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: You’ve decided it wasn’t valid 


for lymph nodes. 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's right. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: And this draft, approach to 


dose reconstruction that complements 49 also 


doesn’t touch on lymph nodes. 


 DR. NETON: I’m trying to think of what we did 

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with that now. I’ll have to -- I’ll have to 


get back to you on that. I just -- I just am 


drawing a blank right now. I know -- I know 


I’ve had these discussions but I can’t -- I 


can’t -- it can’t come to me right now. What I 


was going to say earlier though I think is that 


it seems like we’ve -- the approach we’ve 


adopted seems in principle to have been 


generally agreed to. And then how far we go 


down this path of validating every single 


calculation seems to me to be sort of outside 


the realm of the SEC process. I’m just -- my ­

- my opinion. So whether or not the -- the GI 


tract model is sufficiently bounding or not is 


really sort of out of the realm of the SEC 


process. It’s can we -- can we bound it, and 


not is it exactly correct. And so I hope that 


we don’t start going down and validating every 


number here and delay the SEC decision because 


we’re still worrying about, you know, certain 


approaches that might be a little higher than 


what we expected. 


 DR. BISTLINE: Let me say with regard to the 


lymph node issue that that’s -- that’s a touchy 


one because most people -- I was one of the 

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three prosectors for the U.S. Transuranium 


Registry, and when I did all my autopsies I 


dissected out the trachea-bronchial lymph nodes 


and the bronchial-pulmonary lymph nodes, which 


was a very tedious job. But -- And those were 


separated and counted separately but that 


wasn’t always done by everybody else. And so 


some cases may have not had that separation of 


lymph nodes. But most of the cases that I did 


at Rocky did have that. And with the high 


fired oxide, for instance, on the case that I 


just mentioned the -- the lymph nodes was where 


a great deal of the trachea-bronchial lymph 


nodes was where a great deal of that activity 


was at. In fact Jim McEnroy (ph) did the -- 


the laboratory analysis of that and craft up 


these low level counting facility for about a 


year. It took about a year to recover so... 


 DR. NETON: It’s -- It’s tricky. I -- I’m 


just trying to think. It seems to me if you’ve 


got intake you can get the lymph node content 


though. 


 DR. BISTLINE: But it may be different on high 


fired oxide than --


 DR. NETON: Yeah, it might be. I’m just trying 

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to --


 DR. BISTLINE: -- because it’s so insoluble 


that --


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 DR. BISTLINE: That’s where we really found a 


lot of the activity in high fired oxide. 


DR. NETON: But then if they all go to the 


lymph nodes then the lung doses are way 


overestimated so you can’t -- 


 DR. BISTLINE: Yep. Yep. 


 DR. NETON: -- have it both ways as usual. 


It’s either a lymph node dose or a lung dose. 


 DR. BISTLINE: Right. 


 DR. MAURO: Jim, I think this is important. 


Bob, in your opinion, given this -- this 


tension, where do you go, if you’re looking at 


the dose to the lung as opposed to the dose to 


the lymph node? Now, what I’m hearing is that 


you folks have a protocol which will drive the 


two, if you happen to be concerned with a 


particular type of cancer, you’re going to make 


the assumptions that drive it -- the worst case 


to that direction as opposed to the other. 


Now, have you had an opportunity to look at 


that, the way that -- those decision points and 

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you feel as if it’s bounded on the lymph node 


side also? I mean or -- 


 DR. BISTLINE: I haven’t looked at it real 


closely, John. 


 DR. MAURO: It sounds like something we should 


look at. 


 DR. BISTLINE: I need to look at it a little 


bit more but I still think that the -- overall 


I think that the conservatism that -- that you 


folks have built into it is -- is pretty 


adequate. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I have a more general question, 


Jim. I think, you know, part of what we’ve 


been -- SC&A and I think I’ve been trying to do 


is to some extent pull the string on some of 


these things. I think we have to know when -- 


when enough is enough on that. But, you know, 


I don’t think, like for instance the USTUR -- 


for instance we have to understand how they’re 


being used so I don't know. I feel it is 


reasonable to consider that ORAU should have 


validated that data. But we also have to 


understand a little about -- a little more 


about how useful they are, you know, and so 


that’s why we’re pulling these strings. 

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 DR. NETON: I’m not arguing with that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: I’m just trying to keep a focus on 


 MR. GRIFFON: I agree. 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, I think it’s important Wanda 


be at the table when we have these discussions. 


MR. GRIFFON: You’re -- You’re absolutely 


right, though. I agree. 


 DR. WADE: Because there is -- there is a 


tension. We’ve always lived with this tension 


of how much is enough. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. WADE: You know, NIOSH has presented a 


petition evaluation report to the Board. The 


Board has not acted upon that petition 


evaluation report. The Board will have to face 


that in June and if it doesn’t decide in June 


it’ll have to deal with that in September. I 


think it falls to the Board members on this 


working group to make the decision as to how 


you’re going to drive this process. I would 


ask you as a designated federal official that 


you keep in mind always this tension that that 


-- where it’s really your judgment call that 

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needs to be made here and -- But again 


sometimes we look at an issue technically and 


it’s so fascinating to us we want to spend a 


great deal of time. I would ask you that you 


keep your mind on the overall process as well 


because in time if you don’t decide on Rocky 


Flats at this meeting or the next meeting we’ll 


start to face significant amounts of pressure, 


the Board will. And so I mean you have to 


really take that into account. But that’s for 


the Board members to act on. 


DR. MAURO: When Wanda gets back there is a 


question I’d like to ask Bob which is posed I 


think along the lines that we’d like to craft 


it. I -- I guess right now our main concern 


is in principle could you envision that by 


picking the proper parameters you will be able 


to place a plausible upper bound? Now, there 


may be some disagreement about what the optimum 


parameters are based on the data. The data --


you looked at a certain amount of data so far 


and in your judgment what I’m hearing is that 


the lung into the systemic organs, there 


certainly appears that it bounds -- so -- in a 


way not only you -- you also -- you’ve come to 

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a place where you believe that it’s a plausible 


upper bound, if not conservative. Now we -- we 


raise the question I guess of lymph nodes in 


the thoracic region and in principle do you 


visualize that you can come up with an approach 


that would, for those individuals that have 


suffered from that condition, do you envision 


that the basic methodology be employed and 


developed by NIOSH could in principle deal with 


that? Or do we -- or are there some underlying 


issues that would prevent a plausible upper 


bound from being placed on that particular 


organ dose? Do you see what I mean? As 


opposed to trying to find what the right number 


is, is it plausible to accept that? Because, 


see, I notice that we’re spending a lot of time 


trying to decide what’s the best assumption to 


make to get the best number. I think I -- what 


we’re all more interested in is do we have a 


process that -- that you can find a plausible 


upper bound that gives the benefit of the doubt 


to a particular claimant for his particular 


cancer. 


 DR. BISTLINE: I think that’s something that 


maybe Joyce can answer better than I can at 

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this point. She --


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: The -- The only thing that -- 


is that we don’t have the upper bounds for 


lymph nodes. NIOSH didn’t give us -- they gave 


us for thoracic, for extra-thoracic, for GI 


tract, and it said it doesn’t apply to lymph 


nodes so I’m asking what about lymph nodes. 


 DR. NETON: We -- We could answer that. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: The upper bounds for NIOSH. 


 DR. NETON: Rather than speculating on an 


answer I’ll get -- I’ll get the real answer. 


 DR. WADE: Wanda, while you were gone we had a 


discussion just about as to how much is enough 


discussion and I wanted to have a little bit of 


that with you here also. I mean if you step 


back on the Rocky Flats SEC petition you look 


at the broad issue. NIOSH has presented a 


petition evaluation report. The Board has 


decided at its last meeting not to vote. And 


now we’ll have to, at each meeting, we will 


have to come to that decision again. As a 


designated federal official, if I felt 


compelled to instruct the Board that I felt 


that it needed to vote more than it was out of 


bounds in terms of this issue I’ll do that. 
I 
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don't think that’s the case but what I would 


say to the Board members on this working group 


is you need to always sort of keep that -- that 


process in mind. You should have a sense of 


how much effort you want to spend in going deep 


in some of these issues to make sure that you ­

- you in a timely way bring a recommendation 


that the Board can indeed vote on. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MS. MUNN: And it is a major concern of mine 


because these types of issues that we deal with 


here are issues that any one of us could make a 


life work of if we so chose to do that. We 


simply cannot afford to do that, neither in 


terms of time for the claimants’ sake nor in 


terms of -- of reasonable approach to the 


issues. So how much is enough is a thing that 


I think it’s imperative the working group come 


to an agreement on. Otherwise we can’t have a 


very firm recommendation to give to the Board. 


And those Board members who have not been privy 


to the kinds of discussions that go on here are 


relying on us I believe to make that very 


decision. 


 DR. WADE: And let me say for the record that I 

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think the process that you all have engaged in 


is outstanding. I think it is an appropriate 


process. I think it’s just a matter of 


deciding how to manage is all. So maybe -- and 


I don’t think we’re out of bounds at all. It’s 


something for you all to keep in mind as you 


sort of move forward in this. 


 MS. MUNN: My -- My sense is we’re nearing a 


point where we have to make some of these 


decisions, whether we’re -- whether everybody 


is completely happy with them or not. 


DR. MAURO: I’d like to take it a step further. 


I think NIOSH has come up with a strategy to 


dealing with a situation where ICRP does not 


have models but we do have empirical data. And 


-- And it sounds to me that we have enough 


empirical data so that if we could look at 


enough cases we still have to get to the point 


where you believe that there are adjustment 


factors that could be applied. And this is 


really what it comes down to. There are 


adjustment factors that could be applied to the 


models so that you can bound what the dose 


might be to any particular individual, any 


particular cancer. This is in essence what 

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we’re talking about. The particular value you 


pick, and the -- it’s almost -- it’s almost 


like secondary to the SEC issue. In my mind, I 


mean I don't know if anyone agrees with it but 


in my mind, in a way, once we all have embraced 


the philosophy that yes, going to these real 


data for real people in the transuranic 


registry and looking at and testing the 


strategy against them and saying yeah, it looks 


like it works, I think we’re there. Now, what 


I’m hearing is there may be some questions 


regarding some particular organs with, you 


know, the lymph nodes and whether or not they 


pick the best strategy. But once you buy in on 


the idea that you can do that and the data 


exists out there at a level of precision that 


doesn’t leave you out in a void where you 


really can’t -- don’t know what to pick, to me 


we’re -- we’re beyond the SEC issue then. I 


mean the SEC issue has been solved. Now, it 


may rear its ugly head again during site 


profile review. I'm not sure. It seems to me 


that what we’ve done to date is not only engage 


the SEC issue as best we can, but we have gone 


a long way toward engaging the site profile 

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aspects of this issue also. And I think we’re 


-- we’re trying to find a place where we’re all 


comfortable; where we can say, okay, I think we 


can put this SEC part behind us and where we 


have a little bit more to do. The only thing I 


heard out of this discussion so far includes -- 


correct me if I’m wrong -- is that there’s 


still a little bit more room for discussion 


regarding the lymph nodes. Other than that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean I’ll correct you a little. 


 DR. MAURO: Please. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Only a little. 


 DR. MAURO: Please. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But Joyce said she was going to 


do more work on the USTR cases, too. She’s 


done three. 


 DR. MAURO: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So so far, you know, it looks 


conservative and we all agree with that. 


 DR. MAURO: Let me take you --


 MR. GRIFFON: You want -- You want complete 


data. 


 DR. MAURO: Well, let me -- let’s -- let’s say 


Joyce looks at a -- a number of additional 


cases and ah, holy mackerel, you found one 

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that’s worse. Let’s say we run into one that’s 


worse, okay? A factor of four isn’t good 


enough. Where does that put us? Does that 


mean we use a different factor number? 


 MR. GRIFFON: And then you’d -- and then you’d 


run into that question of plausible, too. 


 DR. MAURO: And -- And plausible. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Don’t start just throwing factors 


around. 


DR. MAURO: This is -- you see where we’re 


going. This is a very strange place where -- 


where -- where I think that you guys picked a 


strategy that to date seems to work and -- and 


-- and gets us to an upper bound that you still 


feel is plausible but probably conservative to 


most people but plausible for some. Okay. One 


of the --


 DR. BEHLING: Can I make a comment here? 


 DR. MAURO: Yes. 


 DR. BEHLING: Regarding the lymph nodes I was 


looking through some of the ICRP documents and 


at this point while they didn’t give a 


definitive number they did in fact make 


comments such as the thoracic lymph nodes would 


probably experience a dose that was at least 

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equal to or possibly greater than the lung. 


Therefore the lung may serve as a surrogate 


organ for estimating doses to the thoracic 


lymph nodes as a default value. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, let’s not -- Jim has an 


answer for this so I think we’ll just wait for 


him. 


 DR. NETON: And that was my thought, Hans, you 


know. If you can get to intake, then if you 


put all the activity into the lymph nodes you 


bound it. I mean --


 DR. BEHLING: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: You can’t have it both ways but you 


can certainly say it’s all in the lymph nodes I 


mean if you can believe our intake estimates. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And just to respond to -- to -- 


to John’s thing. I think -- I mean I think 


we’re all seeing the same thing. I think we’re 


converging on this as Joe said. And I don’t 


think, you know -- I think we just need to 


carry it through the last look at the design 


cases, looking at a few more USTR cases and 


then -- and then having an interim report. 


And, you know, I think we’re -- I think we’re 


close on all the sub-issues under this even. 

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But I think we need to, you know, complete that 


component anyway. And I, you know, I think 


that’s where it has -- where we have to take 


it. I don’t expect any -- any -- I don't know. 


I -- I mean I think we just carry it on 


through. 


 MS. MUNN: I would feel more comfortable if we 


had, for example, agreed on a general number of 


-- of cases that we would feel comfortable 


having Joyce review. I don’t -- This again is 


the how much is enough issue. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, there’s only so many high 


fired plutonium cases. How -- How many --


DR. NETON: Transuranic Registry has got a lot 


of --


 MR. GRIFFON: A lot of them? 


 DR. NETON: A lot of plutonium cases. I mean 


there’s a lot out there. See, I thought that ­

-


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I mean --


 DR. NETON: -- at the last Board meeting Joyce 


had compared this model against Eckerman’s 


model, some Mayak models. It turned out we 


were more favorable. I thought that was the 


end of the issue to be honest you. And now 

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that we’re going back into the Transuranic 


Registry and validating cases that’s fine I 


suppose --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: But again, how far do we want to go 


here? And like John said, it’s quite plausible 


there’s going to be one analysis that’s going 


to maybe be an outlier maybe just based on 


purely statistic -- for purely statistical 


reasons as an outlier and then where does that 


leave us? I don't know. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I mean --


 DR. NETON: In cases pick the highest, the most 


dose --


 MR. GRIFFON: I think where we left it at the 


last Board meeting was that the analysis quite 


frankly didn’t go beyond the TIB’s. I mean 


that’s where Joyce stopped and we just asked 


her --


 DR. NETON: (Unintelligible) 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) certainly case 


data and that’s where it ends I think. 


 DR. NETON: She cleared the ICRP models already 


that Eckerman’s put out, and postulating -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: She did that model to model, 

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right. Right. She did that. 


 DR. NETON: -- Which is based on real data as 


well --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: So you’ve got two cases of real 


sets of data and now we’re going back and 


looking at the transuranic... It’s fine. I 


mean I certainly --


 MR. GRIFFON: All we ask is that, you know, you 


cite those in your TIB and I guess I pushed 


this -- this issue maybe but all I said is 


let’s look at the design cases and -- and -- 


and some USTR cases. I think it’s fair to ask 


how many, you know, and that’s why -- and I was 


kind of leaving that up to SC&A and Joyce to 


kind of -- but I agree we need an end point on 


that. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I don’t, you know -- 


 MS. MUNN: And the other issue -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I don’t want -- I don’t want them 


to look at every USTUR case. 


 MS. MUNN: And the other issue is so there’s an 


outlier. 


 DR. NETON: Right. 

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 MS. MUNN: Do you know of any data set that 


doesn’t have outliers? You know, just because 


you encounter one or two still does not 


indicate that there is a systemic problem with 


any of the data that exists in the uranium -- 


plutonium uranium registry. 


 MR. GRIFFON: This is just this level of 


thoroughness I guess that we have to grapple 


with as a work group that, you know, my feeling 


is that if -- if -- if you find like these -- 


these unusual things that I found in the cases, 


Roger -- Roger had explanations for them. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, he told you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And that’s good. And now we have 


to weigh those. And the same thing with USTR 


cases. If you have a lot of cases that Joyce 


looks at that have a lot of abnormalities then 


you start to maybe be concerned. But on the 


other hand that’s only being used as a 


comparative -- it’s not used in TIB 49 


necessarily. You’re comparing against that so, 


you know, I don’t even know if that’s a big 


thing but, you know, I guess that would raise 


questions. 


 DR. NETON: I guess I would argue these are all 

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Rocky Flats cases. The design model is based 


on all Rocky Flats cases. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. NETON: So that -- that’s the best 


population you can use. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: Now, if you find some other -- 


other -- other --


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, actually the Hanford cases 


DR. NETON: Well, the -- No, the Hanford case 


was just one; they were equal. 


MR. GRIFFON: Just the one case. 


DR. NETON: They were equal to the Rocky Flats 


design case and so -- but then you find some 


ceramicized plutonium at Los Alamos that may 


behave slightly differently. I’d say at this 


point --


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean I guess -- I guess the way 


I would say, I still think maybe we’ll leave 


this to some extent to SC&A of how many USTUR 


cases to take back but with the understanding 


that we’d like an interim report on this issue 


before the next Board meeting so that kind of 


dictates how -- how many they’re going to do. 

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They’re not going to spend all their resources 


in the next two weeks delving into this. 
I 


think Joyce is going to say I’ve looked at 


three or four more; they’ve all -- you know, 


they’re all conservative. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Do you have any --


 MR. GRIFFON: Let’s write an interim report and 


be done with it, you know. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Joyce, do you have --


 MR. GRIFFON: That’s just where it’s going to 


go. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Joyce, do you have any sense 


right now -- I think you were saying into next 


week. How many cases do you see in that? 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: I -- I don't know how many 


because I have -- I’m now looking just at the 


highest ones and I think I -- I’m going to just 


look at the highest ones because the model that 


is proposed is not really a model. It’s an --


it is a like adjustment factors instead of 


models which is okay. No problem with that. 


But based on the higest possible amount in 


system -- in the lung. So I have to look at 


the -- the highest lung burden that have in 


those cases and I think that Bob is now helping 

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me to choose the -- will help me to choose the 


cases. He just gave you the one that was the ­

- the worst exposed person to look at. And 


then that’s like I’m doing now so I think we -- 


we -- I feel pretty comfortable for -- for now 


with -- with the -- the -- with the adjustment 


factors that were proposed. I didn’t see 


anything that was against it, you know. All of 


the data are favorable to the -- to the 


proposed adjustment factors. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, boy. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: And now everything is good and 


as Jim said, I -- if I compare Eckerman’s model 


for Mayak and these adjustment factors, the 


adjustment factors, these are much higher dose 


and a much higher content in organs than the 


Eckerman’s model. In Mayak they had very, very 


high exposure, probably higher than at Rocky 


Flats. 


 MS. MUNN: That certainly should get us into 


bounding cases. Yeah. Thank you, Joyce. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. So I think, you know, 


we don’t know exactly how many more cases but 


it’s not going to be all the cases certainly. 


 DR. MAURO: What we’re gonna do -- 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. MAURO: What we’ll do is we’re going to -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Some of the highest ones. 


DR. MAURO: We’re gonna show you what we have 


and deliver a report in a timely fashion -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. MAURO: -- so you’ll have a chance -- the 


working group will have a chance to look at it. 


You’ll see how many cases we looked at and -- 


and you’ll also have a sense whether, you know, 


that’s good enough, too. Rather than say how 


many we’re going to do --


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 DR. MAURO: -- we’re going to do as many as we 


can within a relatively short period, a time 


period that will allow -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. MAURO: -- you folks to deliberate a bit 


before the Washington meeting. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And use your judgment on your 


resources. 


 DR. MAURO: And where our resources should go. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I think the key thing is to 


manage that issue --

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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- such that it makes sense. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: There’s a rhyme or reason for 


what we’re doing. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And are we done with this Super S 


issue? I think we’re done for now. We’re 


going to get the interim report and Jim’s going 


to follow up on the one lymph node issue. Can 


I ask for a comfort break? I know some people 


have been walking away but I haven’t been able 


to. So maybe just ten minutes and we’ll 


reconvene in ten minutes. 


 MS. MUNN: Fine. 


 (Whereupon, a brief recess was held from 11:25 


a.m. to 11:40 a.m.) 


NEUTRON DOSE RECONSTRUCTION
 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Everyone on the phone, 


we’re reconvening now. A little more than 15 


minutes but Ray was a little late again. 


(Group laughter) 


 DR. WADE: Let the record show. 


 MR. GRIFFON: These are casual. These are 


working groups, right? 


THE COURT REPORTER: That's right. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: We’re going to move on to the 


second item, neutron dose reconstruction. And 


Joe Fitzgerald, the SC&A team just handed out a 


-- an analysis -- internal draft of SC&A’s 


review of external dose issues and NIOSH’s 


evaluation report. So this -- this is going to 


overlap from what I understand some neutron 


issues but also it might get into some of the 


external dose data reliability questions. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, let me preface first 


off, certainly apologize for just handing this 


out. Ron’s been working this issue for a 


couple weeks and we were trying to get a -- 


some information together for this discussion 


today. And I thought it would be helpful to 


have what he’s produced as far as a working 


draft available as he talks through. I think 


he’s done a good job of frankly distinguishing 


what we think are some questions. I wouldn’t 


call them issues but questions that have SEC 


implications, being data reliability 


implications from that which I think we have 


settled out in past meetings. We’re not going 


to revisit those. He identifies them. This is 


sort of a -- a pre-piece for the evaluation 

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that we’re going to generate so if they’re in 


here we’re not going to bring them up. They’re 


just cataloged as issues that have been 


resolved. And these also get into external -- 


external dose assessment. This piece covers I 


think the waterfront as far as the external 


dose side goes, the co-worker dose model and 


all the rest. So I’m going to turn it over to 


Ron to kind of focus really on the questions 


that I think you’ve developed in this analysis 


that deal with issues that might have some SEC 


implications if in fact they’re borne out as 


uncertainties or areas where the data may be in 


question. So we’re going to just focus on that 


and not get into the other items that are in 


this piece. But for completeness you have it 


all at this point. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Okay, Joe. Do you want 


me to just go down the -- on the main ones that 


I feel could have SEC implications? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, please. 


MR. BUCHANAN: If you read through this five-


page summary, like Joe says, a number of these 


issues we’ve addressed in the past and we -- 


SC&A had some questions on them. We came back 

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and chewed on some of them and have addressed 


them to our satisfaction that they’d probably 


be site profile issues; however not necessarily 


SEC issues. Now, there are two items though 


that we still struggle with as far as SEC -- 


possible SEC issues and that’s two items and 


I’ll identify those, and perhaps we can discuss 


them and see how we could resolve them. Number 


one is the fact that on page one, table 1 -- 


might be page two on your report -- we see that 


in ’69 and ’70 we had a number -- a higher 


number of zeros in our data entry than we did 


the previous or the following years, 36 percent 


for the average of ten percent. That’s one 


major issue I’d like to address. The other 


major issue is that I looked over the -- the OTIB’s 58 and of course the related O-TIB’s 50 


and NDRP report, and the question, the main 


concern I have with there is the earlier data. 


Now, I did go see on the O-drive you posted 


some I think around the first of -- in April on 


the -- some real data for individuals for ’52 


through ’05. I looked at that data and the 


problem is it doesn’t separate out the neutron 


and photon dose and I need to look at the 

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neutron dose and photon dose separately to see 


how many neutron -- how much measurements was 


done in ’52 and ’53, ’54, ’55 with the neutron 


doses and what departments those were in to 


determine if we can reconstruct the dose. And 


so those are the two issues I’d like to address 


today. Now, does anyone or has anyone looked 


at or anyone could explain why the ’69 and ’70 


data entries were so many zeros compared to the 


previous or the post-era? 


 DR. ULSH: Well, my first reaction, Ron -- this 


is Brant Ulsh, and I’m going to rely on Roger 


and maybe Bob to talk about how credible or 


incredible this might be, but the big fire 


occurred in ’69 and that pretty much ground 


production activities in the plutonium building 


to a halt after that fire and during the 


cleanup stage. And those production workers 


were reassigned to I believe the 850 cafeteria. 


I had a conversation with Bob over the break. 


And so you might expect that their doses would 


be -- those are some of the higher dose people 


but those doses would be low or zero. Now, I 


don't know, Roger and Bob, does that sound like 


a credible scenario or -- 

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 DR. BISTLINE: Roger, what’s your thought on 


thought -- thought on that? 


 MR. FALK: Yes, that is -- that is credible. 


That would be the workers who were actually 


assigned to building 7 -- 777 and 776. And 


they were -- they were stationed there until 


they could be reassigned to -- they -- until 


they could be reassigned to other areas. But 


yes, they -- some of those workers were there 


for -- for probably -- for probably several 


months. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Wouldn’t have this been -- now, 


see, I guess the fire was like in the second 


quarter of ’69. Would have this extended in 


through the year 1970? You know, would it -- 


would it last say six quarters of this 


reassignment with no plutonium work? 


 MR. FALK: That is possible for some of the 


workers. Also keep in mind in the summer of 


1970 there -- there was a strike in the summer. 


I’m trying to recall when it was. It was 


probably for a month or two so that was another 


discontinuity. 


 DR. ULSH: The only other event that comes to 


my head, and I'm not sure that it would be 

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relevant to this, is the transition from film 


badge to TLD. That occurred right around this 


time frame, too, didn’t it, Roger or Bob? But 


I can’t see why that would impact the number of 


zeros. I’m just saying that that was -- 


 MR. FALK: Yeah. We -- We -- We converted 


the -- the plant to the beta gamma TLD’s in 


1970 but I don’t think that would really affect 


these zeros. 


 DR. BISTLINE: That would be my feeling, too, 


Roger. 


 DR. BEHLING: This is Hans Behling and I do 


have a comment on that issue. And is it 


possibly that the duration of the wear period 


was shortened significantly, especially when 


you have a radiological crisis that you’re 


concerned about and the potential for exceeding 


admin limits et cetera, that oftentimes what 


happens is that you assign daily batches or go 


from monthly to weekly or very short duration 


meaning that if these people were exchanged 


very quickly and -- and frequently that you 


would have a series of batch cycles that simply 


never reached the -- the limit of -- of 


detection. And therefore you end up with a 

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quarterly dose that is zero. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, that sounds credible to me but 


I don't know --


 MR. GRIFFON: Is -- Is -- Actually -- I guess 


I’m just wondering if there’s a way to take 


this to -- to completion. Is there any way 


that we can check -- I don't recall if the 


database has information on the building that 


we could see, building 777/776 and compare 


before and after the fire time frame and see if 


the number of zeros is -- is consistent or if 


it increases as that might -- that might 


support your scenario. But I don't know if 


that information exists in the database even, 


if there’s building -- I kind of doubt it 


actually. 


 DR. BEHLING: It’s not --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, Mark, it may not be a 


question of zeros. Kathy Demers found that 


there were gaps, nothing in the individual dose 


records from those years for deep dose I think. 


Is that what you were saying, Joe? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Actually I think -- I think it 


was no data, wasn’t it? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: No data. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: But that could mean they were 


reassigned. 


 DR. ULSH: I don't know. We were looking at 


this last week. Kathy identified two 


individuals, and I would caution everybody, you 


may have to respect privacy acts. There were 


just two individuals that we looked at their 


RAD files and they appeared to have, you know, 


results for all the years prior to and after 


1969 but there was just nothing there for 1969. 


As of now I don’t have an explanation for that. 


We are looking into it. Unless anything has 


happened over the weekend, any -- any of my 


team members out there? 


 (No response) 


DR. ULSH: Okay. I think at the end of the 


last weekend it appears to be the case now. We 


didn’t yet have an explanation for it so we are 


still looking at that. 


MR. BUCHANAN: Okay. I have a question. Is 


Joyce still on the line? 


DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes, I am. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: On any of the bioassay did you 


see the same scenario there? Did you have more 


zeros or less MDA’s there in ’69 and ’70 than 

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you did the prior or following five year or 


have you looked at that? 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: I didn’t -- no, I didn’t notice 


anything. No. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Could -- Could you --


Joyce, how much of a job would it be to send me 


this -- a summary like I have? Do you have a 


copy of what we’re talking about in front of 


you? 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: No. No, I don’t. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Okay. I could send you this and 


ask if you could do a quick compilation and see 


if -- if the internal dose fills a similar 


pattern or not. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Okay. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Okay. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: I’ll do that today. 


 DR. BEHLING: This is Hans again. This is a 


question for Ron. Ron, are the doses for those 


years prior to ’76 still only quarterly doses 


that we assume were the composite of multiple 


cycles possibly of expo-- of monitoring? 


MR. BUCHANAN: Those are -- those are, yeah, 


yearly doses. Just the sum of the total 


penetrating yearly doses. 

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 DR. BEHLING: But they were reported as 


quarterly doses prior to ’76; is that correct? 


 MR. BUCHANAN: I think so. I'm not sure 


exactly how they were recorded. If there’s --


I’d have to look up the database but I think 


that that’s true. Some of them were annual 


doses and some of them were by quarter. 


MR. LANGSTED: This is Jim Langsted. 


Dosimeters were changed on a variety of 


frequencies during those periods. The problem 


is that the data was rolled up into quarterly 


totals which is the only thing that survived in 


the database. It’s not true to say that -- 


that the data was reported on quarterly basis ­

- a quarterly basis. That’s just all we have 


at this point. 


 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, and that was my -- my -- my 


statement is that during a radiological crisis 


oftentimes what happens is that you do tend to 


shorten the wear cycle to a much lower -- 


shorter period meaning that you’re likely to 


report more frequency -- higher frequency of 


below LOD readouts meaning that you may have a 


person who is -- who is monitored weekly now 


and you just have 52 or 13 zero recordings for 

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a quarter meaning that he ends up with nothing 


because of the fact that he was monitored on a 


weekly basis instead of a monthly or quarterly. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: I could see that in 1969. 
I 


don't know if that sort of crisis would have 


extended all the way through ’70 though. 


 DR. BEHLING: Well, the question is to what 


extent were some of these workers used for 


cleanup? 


 MR. BUCHANAN: I don't know. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So we -- we -- we’ve put the 


issue out there. I think -- I don't know that 


we can take, you know -- we can speculate here 


all we want but I think we need to look into 


this issue. 


 DR. WADE: Do we have a new member of the team 


at the table? 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, I’ll introduce him. This is 


Craig Little. He just arrived. He is part of 


the ORAU team. I guess we’ll do the normal 


conflict. I don't think you have any 


conflicts. 


 MR. LITTLE: I have no conflicts with Rocky 


Flats. 


 DR. ULSH: Craig is sitting in for Bob Meyer 

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who is the TBD team leader, and Bob is out of 


the country right now. 


 DR. WADE: All right. Thanks. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: I did have a question. When we 


were talking about what’s available on a yearly 


or a quarterly basis. Can someone answer the 


question, do we have the quarterly records all 


the way back to ’52 or some of those yearly 


doses? 


 DR. WADE: Could you repeat the question, 


please? 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Do we have the quarterly doses 


available all the way back to ’52 or are some 


of those only available on a yearly basis? 


 MR. LANGSTED: Well, I believe some of the 


early data was -- is only available on a yearly 


basis. This is Jim Langsted. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And Ron, did you -- to go back to 


the other primary issue that you raised or 


question that you raised, was that on the 


rolled up data and how to separate up a neutron 


and gamma? Was that your other -- other 


primary question or -- or --


 MR. BUCHANAN: Yes. The second of the two main 

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issues was the ’69/’70 zeros and the second 


issue was on the ’52 through ’57 especially 


when they used mainly the neutron track plates 


rather than the MPA film. I need to be able to 


look at the details of the neutron dose each 


year, individual. I don’t need their Social 


Security number or anything but I need how -- 


how many neutron measurements were actually 


reconstructed during the NDRP project for each 


year and hopefully some kind of identification 


with them and then building number because I 


need to look to see the validity of their 


intake neutron dose. See, because in O-TIB’s 


58 which created table 7-1, and we get a 50 and 


a 95th percentile on the penetrating dose which 


is neutron plus gamma and I need to look at the 


details of the neutron dose on that and what’s 


the present data on O-drive does not have that 


broken down. And so what I’d like to know is 


can -- can that be provided so that I have the 


neutron -- individual neutron and gamma results 


for each year and the building number? 


 DR. ULSH: Now, is that from the NDRP that 


you’re talking about, Ron? 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Well, no, this is -- it’s 

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summarized in O-TIB’s 58 in table 1, and it 


lists 1952 through 00 -- 2005, the penetrating 


dose, the 95th and the 50th percentile. And on 


the O-drive they post it, the composite dose 


but there’s no separation of the neutron and 


gamma dose. And what I need is table 7 -- what 


I need is the individual doses, like there was 


like 42 doses or something recorded in 1952. 


need to be able to go in there and look at what 


the neutron component was and what the gamma 


component was for each worker for that year. 


And the -- especially ’52 through ’57 when NTP 


plates were used. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. I think I understand what 


you’re asking for, and I will try to get that 


for you. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: And if --


 MR. FITZGERALD: You’re really working off 


table 7-1? 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Right. I need -- I need to 


break down 7-1 to see the details. I want to 


see how many neutron monitoring say was done in 


1952 or 1953 a year to see if the number they 


give here is -- is valid, you know. If there 


was just one measurement, well, this number 


I 
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isn’t very statistically valid. If there was 


100 measurements it’s useable. And I need to 


see what the numbers were, what the range were 


and what buildings they were in because I’m 


concerned about 771, if there was any badging, 


even empty plates in those in the early years. 


 DR. BISTLINE: Roger, do you have that 


information on those 18 people that had neutron 


badges between 1951 and 1957? 


 MR. FALK: Well, that’s probably part -- that’s 


probably part of the NDRP database. 


 DR. BISTLINE: Yeah. 


 MR. FALK: But I’m thinking -- I’m thinking 


that all of this might be moot because -- 


because the NDRP data would basically take 


precedence over the old data, especially for -- 


especially for -- especially for the -- the 


neutrons. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Which -- Which data? Sorry. 


I did not get that, Roger. 


 MR. FALK: The NDRP data. 


 DR. BISTLINE: We’re talking dose 


reconstruction data because there were only 18 


-- 18 people that were monitored from 1951 ‘til 


1957, neutron monitored. And -- And that was 

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figured into the NDRP study. 


 MR. FALK: Well, Bob, that isn’t quite right 


because there was only 10 to 20 people 


monitored per month but -- but the list could 


really vary from month to month. And so it is 


more than just 18 or 20 total people. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Yeah, that was just for building 


771 I understand. I understand that there were 


657 neutron plates re-read between ’51 and ’57. 


Is that right, Roger? 


 MR. FALK: That is probably correct. I don’t 


have the -- the number but it sounds right. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Uh-huh. There were 7-- 757 but 


only 657 were readable or something. And 


that’s the results I’d like to see because 


we’re going to assign dosage here using the 


results of those 657 plates between ’52 and ’57 


and I need to see the details of that rather 


than the NDRP or if it’s, you know, like table 


7.1. I realize 7.1 was taken from the NDRP. 


do not have access to -- to look at those on a 


breakdown basis. 


 MR. FALK: Also keep in mind the workers who 


were monitored with the plates were not from 


building 71. They were from building 91. 


I 
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 DR. BISTLINE: Yes. 


 MR. FALK: Right? 


 DR. BISTLINE: Yes. 


 MR. FALK: For the 18 or whatever that number 


was in ’56 and ’57. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: But Roger, I thought that no 


people from the 71 building were monitored up 


to ’57; is that correct? Or ’65 -- what was 


the year? 


 MR. FALK: The year is 1957 when they started 


to -- to use the NTA film. But I don't think 


any building 71 person was monitored with the 


glass plate method. 


 DR. BISTLINE: I don’t either. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So how do we get to the neutron 


photon ratio for the ’52 to ’57 period? 


 MR. FALK: You back extrapolate from the year 


when we do have data which is actually 1959. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Assuming that all of the 


working conditions were the same, so that’s 


sort of of a --


 MR. FALK: That is a basic assumption. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: Or at least the conditions that 


would affect the neutron to gamma ratio. 

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 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Yeah. And the neutron energy 


spectrum. If -- If we didn’t have any -- if 


we only had 18 badges in ’56 and ’57 at 


building 71 then we’re going to have to use the 


neutron plate information for the earlier years 


for that building. And we have to assume that 


the neutron energy spectrum was similar between 


the other buildings and 71 during earlier 


years. Would anybody care to comment on that? 


 MR. FALK: Well, yes, it turns out that -- it 


turns out that I don't think you would use the 


neutron plate data which is building 91 to -- 


to determine neutron gamma ratios for the 


building 71 workers. Those ratios still need 


to be back extrapolated from the 1959 data. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Okay, Roger. What about the 


actual dose? According to table 7.-- 7-1 we’re 


going to use the neutron plate data from 


building 91 to assign unmonitored doses to 


building -- workers in building 71 during the 


early years when they weren’t monitored. Do 


you have comments on -- on the difference -- 


the similarity or difference between the -- the 

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neutron doses workers would receive in ’91 


compared to ’71 during the early years? 


 MR. FALK: I would think they’re -- they’re 


likely to be different and I’m kind of 


surprised that -- I’m surprised that the O-TIB 


58 has that statement in there. That is not 


what I would recommend. 


 DR. BISTLINE: Yeah, those processes were 


totally different in 71 -- in building 71. 


That was a chemical process with fluorination 


associated with it. In ’91 it was -- it was 


final assembly of components and that -- and so 


there -- there’d be a total -- I mean a total 


disconnect there. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Ron, can you give us a reference 


in O-TIB 58 what page that’s on and -- 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Okay. Is anybody there that’s ­

- that wrote 58 or is more familiar with it 


that has detailed information on it? We 


understand O-TIB’s 58 is that they’re going to 


use table 7-1 on page 10 to reconstruct neutron 


doses to all unmonitored workers at Rocky Flats 


throughout the years, so 1952 to 2005. And 


that -- they give steps one through five in 


section seven from page eight and nine and then 

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the final table on 7 -- 7-1 and 7-2. 7-2 is 


the gamma only and the 7-1 is the composite 


neutron plus gamma. You know, correct me if 


I’m wrong but I understand the use of table 58 


is -- is for everybody that worked at Rocky 


Flats during those years and that would include 


building 71 which did not have any neutron 


monitoring per se other than maybe 18 total 


plates. So they would use -- be using the 


neutron track plates from building 91 to do a 


co-worker model dose. 


 DR. ULSH: Unfortunately, Ron, I think you’re 


probably the one person around the table or 


around the call who knows more about TIB 58 


than anyone else. The guy who wrote this I 


think is Matt Smith. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Correct. 


 DR. ULSH: He is not on the call. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ULSH: So I’ll have to follow up and get 


back to you --


 MR. GRIFFON: Follow up on this, okay. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: On that question. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: That’s the way I understand O­
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TIB’s 58. Now, you know, if that’s not right, 


well, then I would be willing to re-evaluate it 


but that’s the way it looks to me at this time. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Yeah, we’ll follow up on that 


and -- and get back in touch with you. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And Ron, in your document, 


because we all just sort of got this real time 


here --


MR. BUCHANAN: Uh-huh.
 

MR. GRIFFON: -- is there anything else -- from 


an SEC standpoint I should say is there any 


other issues that we should discuss now? 


 MR. BUCHANAN: I believe that those were the 


two main issues. If -- As you look through 


there I think that most of them I feel at this 


point the SC&A -- the information SC&A has 


obtained to this point. That most of the other 


issues are site profile issues instead of SEC 


issues. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: That’s why I put working draft 


because again we haven’t had a chance to really 


hammer this out internally but just for the 


purposes of this meeting this is where we are, 


this stage. 

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DR. MAURO: I’d like to pose the question -- 


this is John Mauro -- so we have these two 


issues before us. To step back, what I’m 


hearing is there may -- there may be some good 


reasons why, let’s go with the first one, all 


right. The first one with the high percentage 


of zeros. And we heard some reasons of why 


there might have been a high percentage of 


zeros. Now, but the reason we’re raising this 


is because there’s a data reliability question 


here. And I’m trying to draw the bridge, okay. 


Let’s say we have a couple of years where you 


have for some unknown reason or a speculative 


reason let’s say, a high percentage of zeros. 


Now, what I’m hearing is somehow that brings 


into question data reliability with the 


implications being can you build co-worker 


models? Can you fill in the gaps? Can you 


trust the data? Are we concerned about those 


two years because they have implications for 


other years? Or are we just concerned with 


those two years? You see, I guess when we’re 


talking data reliability, when we’re around a 


table talking SEC issues, I want to get to the 


place that says, listen, ultimately we are 

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seeing something. It’s almost as if the -- a 


tip of an iceberg. Are we concerned that this 


is an indication that there might be some 


underlying problems with the records or -- or 


are we, you know -- So I’d like to hear a 


little bit more about what the, you know -- 


what the possible implications are of both 


these issues in terms of being able to do 


reliable dose reconstructions. And being as 


more -- as much for my benefit because I -- I 


like to look at it from the dis-- from a 


distance and where this might take us. And 


what we might be able to do to perhaps not 


solve the problem explicitly but at least get 


to the point where we feel that it’s a 


tractable issue. Right now I’m not quite sure 


where we are with regard to these two matters 


in terms of how they may affect our ability to 


do dose reconstructions. Can somebody help me 


out a little bit with that? 


 MS. MUNN: That’s a very good question from my 


point of view as well. Particularly when I 


look at the entire table and see that there’s 


nothing at all unusual about the 36/37 


percentile if you take the whole table into 

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consideration. It doesn’t say anything about 


it because it’s outside the scope of the SEC, 


the other -- the others. But taken as an 


overall view of the data that’s available to us 


there’s nothing at all unusual about those 


numbers. It’s only within the SEC time 


framework that they seem to stand out. So --


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, the SEC is the whole -- 


 DR. ULSH: It spans the entire operating 


essentially the same. 


 MS. MUNN: So if you look at the whole table 


you’ll see further down many years where the 


number of zeros exceeded 35/36 percent. And of 


course you would anti-- I would anticipate in 


in the final years when production was shut 


down and cleanup was underway. I would 


anticipate that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MS. MUNN: But during as long as you’re talking 


about operation then there’s nothing really 


outstanding about that unless we’re trying to 


tie that --


 DR. MAURO: Uh-huh. 


 MS. MUNN: -- to the fire. 


 DR. MAURO: Yes. 

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 MS. MUNN: If that’s what we’re trying to do 


then we should say. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think it’s tied in with Kathy 


Demer’s observation, too; those cases that she 


identified where --


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- a couple individuals I guess 


had no data in ’69 so it was a combination of 


looking in the database and those -- those 


individual cases. I think that brought this -- 


that anomaly out more than -- I think -- I 


don't know. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Yeah, that’s correct. This is 


Ron. What brought this about was the question 


of people being in the fire and then they got 


zero dose recorded. And she -- she has some of 


that internal questions, dose questions and 


then when we were discussing it I looked at the 


external dose and seen that those two years 


just popped out of there on the regular flow of 


things. And yes, you’re correct. In later 


years there are some much higher than this. 


But those two years kind of stood out by 


themselves in the midst of ten percent average. 


And so my question was is there a reasonable 

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explanation of this? Is it tied in with the 


internal dose missing data that some of the 


workers seems to think? I guess what I’m 


saying is some of the -- the interviews with 


the workers have problems with the reliability 


of the data and they point that they worked in 


the fire and then they didn’t get any dose. 


And is that problem or is not a problem? I 


don't know but I just wanted to bring out this 


-- this question and see if there was a 


reasonable explanation for it. 


 DR. ULSH: So in terms of these two cases that 


Kathy identified, if we find a reasonable 


explanation for those -- we’re not there yet; 


we don’t know. But if we do find that then the 


fact that these -- we’ve got these two years 


with 36 percent zeros would not be quite as 


compelling in terms of data integrity issues; 


is that accurate? 


MR. BUCHANAN: Well, if we didn’t -- right, if 


we didn’t have cases which were questionable 


during those years then this wouldn’t be quite 


as much of a sore spot I don’t think. Seeing 


that I guess we want to bring up the question, 


is there a data reliability integrity question 

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at this point on these -- these years. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: You know, Brant, it might be 


very useful if we could know that, you know, 


that -- I also know that as Ms. Munn did, that 


the -- the percentage of zeros again goes up in 


the -- in 1977. Wasn’t there sort of a change 


in the monitoring practices from ’77? And so 


if you could have this badge exchange 


frequency, that type of issue that Hans has 


raised, there may be a clearer explanation or 


maybe a different explanation for the later 


zeros. The 1990’s clearly though was 


production, so the high number would be 


explained by the fact that there’s no 


production. But the ’70’s numbers are not so 


clear. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I know that in -- okay, Jim 


Langsted, you might have to jump in here. But 


in ’77 -- after ’77 -- okay, from ’77 forward, 


that’s the years when they stopped doing the 


rollup; is that correct, Jim? 


 MR. LANGSTED: Yeah, the recordkeeping changed 


in about 1976 is when they implemented the -- 


well, they implemented a computerized data 


keeping that we -- that we have the records on. 

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But again that’s quarterly data. There was not 


-- I don’t believe there was a change in the 


dosimetry -- the dosimeter hardware at that 


point. It was a records keeping. 


 MR. ROBINSON: This is Al Robinson. I know 


that in the TBD it does say that from ’77 on 


that all of the cycles that were read were 


reported and that’s been the way we’ve handled 


it from ’70 to ’76 or prior to ’77 we -- that 


there was only rollup data. However, from ’77 


on we assumed that -- that the cycles are 


there. And so that would -- could explain why 


you see so many more zeros in ’77 on. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Well, I understand from what I 


read that’s the way I understand that it was 


done also. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Could a column of the number of 


badge exchanges be added to this? I guess we 


could -- we could because that would clarify 


it. 

 MR. BUCHANAN: Yeah. We don’t really have that 

information --

 MR. ROBINSON: We don’t have that. 

 MR. BUCHANAN: -- for earlier before ’76 and 

’77. 
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 DR. ULSH: Jim, you’re -- you’re familiar with 


this 20 and the -- the databases that we have. 


Is that a -- an easy thing to do? 


 MR. LANGSTED: I’d have to look at that. 
I 


can’t tell you -- tell you right now. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: This is Lew. We’re very pleased to 


have with us -- a petitioner has joined us. 


Would you, Tony, identify yourself? 


MR. DEMAIORI: Yeah, I’m Tony DeMaiori. I’m 


the primary petitioner on behalf of the United 


Steelworkers. 


 DR. WADE: Welcome, Tony. 


 DR. ULSH: We -- We’ll take a look, Arjun. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. So I don't think we can 


answer that right now but we’re -- we’re going 


to look into that. And NIOSH just received 


this so we don’t expect an answer on the fly. 


Anything else in this document, Ron, that -- 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Not -- Not SEC concern. I --


I think that those are the two main issues. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Can I ask Roger a question 


about the ’52 to ’57 period? Because I didn’t 


know this one thing that you said that 10 to 20 


people were monitored but they wouldn’t be the 

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same people necessarily. So you have a certain 


number of badges but maybe you don’t have 


complete dose records for any one person? And 


so you don’t have a good neutron dose record 


for like a particular job? Or how can we know? 


Can we establish the representativeness of the 


work of -- of how these badges actually relate 


to individual workers? I looked at the NDRP 


report some time back so part -- part of my 


question, you already answered it but it’s been 


a couple of months since I looked at it. 


 MR. FALK: Well, that was kind of before my 


time. I was in grade school and later in high 


school during that time. But -- But -- But 


looking at the records it seems like they chose 


the people as being the most likely ones to 


actually receive the highest neutron doses. 


And so that was the basis for essentially 


determining the 10 to 20 people who would be 


issued the neutron dosimeter during that month. 


And so it’s probably not so much a cross-


section representativeness as more of the 


bounding type of a situation. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Do we have any documentation 


for that or is it kind of -- 

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 MR. FALK: Nothing -- Nothing that says that 


explicitly but the rosters do change just a 


little bit from month to month. And that is 


certainly the way that other sites essentially 


did it also. When you only have a small number 


of the dosimeters to be issued, you want to 


issue them to the people who are at the highest 


risk during that month. That seems to be 


standard practice. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Hey, Ron, I wanted to go back to 


the -- the issue you just raised, ’52 to ’57, 


building 771 neutron photon ratios. And on 


matrix -- matrix item number 23. I don't know 


if you have that in front of you. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: We visited this issue before and 


the response I thought we got in a work group 


meeting and -- and in this matrix resolution 


column is that there were O-TIB 50 contained 


building specific and time specific ratios. Is 


that --


 DR. ULSH: The NDRP. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The NDRP, I'm sorry. The NDRP. 


Did I say --


 MS. MUNN: You said O-TIB. 

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 MR. BUCHANAN: Yeah, and -- and -- and that’s 


good. I need to go back -- what I’m saying is 


I need to go back and look at -- at those 


neutron entries in the neutron data for the 


workers to see how many was entered each year. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


MR. BUCHANAN: And the range to see if it’s 


appropriate to do co-worker models using that 


approach. And -- but yes, it’s true they 


entered that and -- and, you know, like Roger 


was saying, they were -- there was monitoring 


each month or whatever period they chose at 


different buildings. Now, when we talk about 


only 18 being monitored, that was only building 


771, and so I need to look at what buildings 


these were -- were monitored at, too, the NTP’s 


were -- were used at. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I just wanted to relate -- 


I think it’s related to that, matrix number 23, 


item number 23. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Yeah, the NDRP does provide that 


overall information but it -- I don't have the 


-- I can’t get to the individual data and 


that’s what I’m requesting. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I got you. And is there anything 

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else? Have we hit on all the issues in the -- 


in the report you just handed out, Ron? Any 


other SEC issues? 


MR. BUCHANAN: Yes, uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Anything else on the general 


topic of neutron dose -- under the neutron dose 


reconstruction topic? 


 DR. WADE: Could I propose just a brief summary 


of what the SEC issues are in this document for 


Tony’s purposes since he just joined us? Ron, 


could you again --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: -- just repeat your two questionable 


issues? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Just those two. 


MR. BUCHANAN: Okay, yeah. For Tony’s sake. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


MR. BUCHANAN: This is Ron Buchanan and I’ve 


reviewed the neutron doses at Rocky Flats and 


just Friday I summarized our position on that 


and sent it to Joe Fitzgerald which handed out 


the sheets this morning. And not everybody has 


had a chance to digest this yet but essentially 


it goes down all the issues that we have 


raised, most of the major issues, and 

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determined which ones were SEC issues and which 


ones were not, and which would just be site 


profile issues. And the two site profile 


issues -- I mean the two SEC issues we have 


identified with the information we have 


available at this time are are -- there’s two. 


Number one, we want to discuss why there was a 


abnormal -- a high number of zeros there in 


1969 and 1970 in the -- in the data entries. 


Not abnormally high compared to later years but 


abnormally high for those two years compared to 


the five years adjacent to them. That was 


number one. There might be some explanation 


that they just put out. We wanted to discuss 


that. And number two was I needed to look at 


the detailed worker doses in the 1952 to 1957 


time frame to determine if the co-worker model 


can be used for the workers to assign doses to 


those that weren’t monitored for neutron doses 


in those early years. And so those are the two 


pending possible SEC issues that we have not 


resolved at this point. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you very much. 


 MR. BUCHANAN: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. If there’s nothing else on 

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the neutron topic I think we still have some 


time. I was going to break for lunch at 1:00 


o'clock but I think we want to go into -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I guess I would just add one 


thing. In the context of our discussion 


earlier we would also build on this in terms of 


trying to provide the working group a interim 


report. I mean you’re seeing probably a lot of 


it here but assuming we get some answers to the 


questions, we’ll build on that and provide 


that. We would plan to provide that certainly 


by the meeting, probably before the meeting. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That makes sense. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


OTHER RADIONUCLIDES


 MR. GRIFFON: Then to move on to the next topic 


I have on my abbreviated agenda is other 


radionuclides. And primarily the one we’ve 


been discussing quite a bit from the matrix was 


americium, but I think there’s a few others 


that SC&A wants to remind us that were on -- in 


the original matrix and we don’t want to lose 


site of them so --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, this was --


 MR. GRIFFON: I’ll turn it over to Joe. 

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 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, this -- this was 


circulated about a week ago. It was a piece 


that Arjun summarized and we circulated to the 


Board and to NIOSH as a discussion piece 


almost. And you should all have a copy of it. 


I guess if you don’t we can make copies but -- 


does everybody have that? 


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. Do you want to -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, I -- I looked at the 


evaluation report for what it said about the 


other radionuclide and also the TBD, to pick up 


that matrix item and try to see, you know, what 


the SEC-related pieces of it were so we could 


address it. NIOSH had said that for these 


other radionuclides the gross alpha -- I’m 


putting americium in there but I’ll cover it 


separately. Generally the -- the -- the 


approach had been that the gross alpha 


urinalysis and the most conservative 


radionuclide could be chosen for that organ. 


And what I found and what is stated in part B 


of the memo, and I don’t know whether I’m 


interpreting this properly, but gross alpha 


data are only available in what used to be 

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called plant B and plant D. But not for plant 


-- sorry. Not -- No. Yes. Not for plant C 


or plant A. And so I was -- it does seem that 


the other radionuclides as listed in the 


memorandum would work in the plants for which 


no gross alpha data appears to be available. 


looked at americium in some more detail. There 


are two issues that have arisen in relation to 


americium which is how are we dealing with the 


-- the plutonium in vivo measurements in the 


plutonium streams where americium was depleted. 


Specifically the issue that we raised before 


was when you get aged, recycled uranium that’s 


already depleted, the first time around has 


gone out and it’s depleted in plutonium 241 and 


so it has very little americium when it comes 


back even though it’s decayed. What happens 


when that is purified? And Roger Falk had 


given the answer that the production 


specifications were that a certain amount of 


plutonium 241 ratio had to be maintained and so 


that -- that issue would not arise. You would 


never get -- send out plutonium with very low 


plutonium 241 as a product out of Rocky Flats, 


so then you would not get something with very 


I 
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low americium to start that in the return 


component. Now, that explanation on reflection 


seems to be a reasonable explanation. The only 


issue raised here is we’ve not evaluated this 


explanation, looked at the documents or 


reviewed it in any way. Theoretically it seems 


to be on the face of it a reasonable 


explanation. It seems like if we were to 


review it a classified investigation would be 


necessary obviously because you have to get 


into production specifications and so on so we 


haven’t done it because the Board -- Board 


hasn’t authorized it. So that’s kind of an 


issue for the working group and the Board to 


deal with. The other americium issue which is 


more directly -- which is not a in principle 


settled issue as yet relates to the waste 


streams where americium was concentrated and 


the americium production itself that happened 


until the late 1970s. And there’s a separate 


section in this little memorandum on that. 


There are some questions regarding the 


americium bioassay data which, well, there are 


several parts. Americium bioassay, first of 


all, began in 1963 so there’s a gap between the 

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time that americium production was being done 


starting in ’57 -- ’58 -- anyway in the late 


’50s and 1963. And then there are some 


questions about the interpretation of the 


bioassay data in relation to americium. Later 


on there -- there are -- there are five areas 


that are identified in the site profile where 


this issue would arise. We’ve delineated those 


five areas. For the in vivo counts there is 


the question of interpretation of in vivo data 


until more sensitive detectors were used which 


would be up until 1976. So there’s a question 


about whether we have adequate -- for sodium 


iodide and then (unintelligible) detectors were 


used. And Hans helped me out here because I 


don’t have -- you know, he has the field 


experience so I basically ran this by Hans as 


well as some comments that are there in the 


site profile itself because of the interference 


of thorium 234, especially for workers who are 


also working with uranium. So you have a 


problem of interpreting the -- the in vivo 


counts for americium. Now, whether some 


compensation of claimant favorable approach to 


interpreting the in vivo counts could be made 

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or not we didn’t yet -- we did not evaluate 


that. 


 DR. NETON: Are you talking about the 


resolution of the sodium iodide versus the 


uranium system? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, from the 63 TEB thorium 


234 --


DR. NETON: You clearly have a 93 TEB peak for 


the thorium 234 which could easily be stripped 


out to measure the americium. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, so --


 DR. NETON: So it may not be a technical issue. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: I know we had a lot of expert 


(unintelligible). 


DR. NETON: (Unintelligible). 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well -- Well, I -- I just want 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: It was raised in the -- in the 


TBD I think and also we thought at least we 


should put it on the table. I’m not saying 


that it’s not an issue that can’t be resolved 


or -- so basically it seems to me broadly that 


there are some measurement -- there’s a gap in 


the americium monitoring up to 1963. There are 

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some measurement issues which could perhaps be 


easily resolved until 1976. And then there’s 


the issue of how are we going to address -- how 


is NIOSH going to address the radionuclides in 


plants A and C for which it doesn’t appear so 


far as I understand it the TBD to be gross 


alpha data. 


 DR. ULSH: I don’t want to interrupt. Are you 


done? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: No. And there are a number of, 


you know, the -- there’s -- the radionuclides 


specifically are thorium 232, uranium 233, 


confounded, you know, with the presence of 


uranium 232 up to 50 PPM, neptunium, curium. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. So if we can -- a couple of 


these we can maybe answer verbally but we’ll 


prepare written responses. 


 DR. NETON: This -- This came over in a report 


what, last week maybe? 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, last week, Thursday I think. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I just had it in my computer. 


 DR. ULSH: Regarding gross alpha, I think what 


we said about americium was that americium-


specific bioassay started in 1963 but we were 


doing gross alpha before that from -- for the 

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gap that you’re talking about from ’57 up to 


’63, during that -- during those years there 


would be gross alpha measurements. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I don't think so because the 


way I interpret -- there’s this table in that 


memorandum which is taken from the site profile 


on page 38. There are two -- two little tables 


there without numbers. But I just basically 


reproduced what -- what is there. And this 


seems to, if I’m interpreting the B1, B2, B3, 


C1, C2 correctly as belonging -- as methods 


that were used as belonging to the class with 


which those letters are associated, then it 


doesn’t appear that if you look at the key, 


which is also from the site profile, then it 


doesn’t appear that there are gross alpha data 


for the americium. 


 MR. FALK: This is Roger Falk. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah. 


 MR. FALK: I would like to comment on the fact 


that the A, B, C, and D were just the general 


plant designations and -- and may be 


interpreted as being the default measurements 


for the bioassay for the -- for those 


buildings. But it does not preclude use of 

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basically any of the measurements for the 


special circumstances if the operational health 


physics staff thought that it was necessary. 


 DR. ULSH: So I think the point is it’s too 


hard to do a delineation there. I mean those 


were the -- those were all the ones that were 


used based on the radionuclides that were in 


use in those buildings. But certainly I mean 


they could -- could have used anything that 


they found and for the special situation they 


could have used --


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, then I guess the question 


isn’t could they have. The question is did 


they? Did they do gross alpha during that time 


period. I think Arjun is raising the question 


is -- is -- you -- you gave a good answer 


previously, that gross alpha would have been 


used prior to americium specific, but the 


question is did they have gross alpha in those 


areas where americium would have been used 


during that time period. And I don't know that 


you can answer that, you know. Maybe that’s 


something you can follow up on unless Roger 


knows offhand. 


 DR. ULSH: I don't know. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: It seems logical that they would use 


the -- the technique that would be appropriate 


for the radionuclides that you could be exposed 


to. I mean I haven’t seen any evidence that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Or -- Or they could have. I 


mean we’ve certainly seen this at other places 


when the primary thing going on in a -- in an 


area is plutonium work and nobody’s paying 


attention to the americium separation 


operation, you know. They may not be 


monitoring at all for that. So I don’t -- I 


don't know either way but I guess if there’s no 


gross alpha during that time period for people 


in those areas, then your previous methodology 


wouldn’t hold. That’s -- I guess that’s 


what’s being questioned anyway. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, well, I basically, you 


know, took -- took the suggested approach from 


the prior meeting and just reviewed the 


available documentation from NIOSH to see 


whether it would work. And there are some 


gaps. And it’s not that the data might not be 


there but so far I could -- as I could see the 


literature there seemed to be some gaps. 

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 DR. ULSH: Okay. We’ll see -- We’ll see what 


we can find. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Do we know, Arjun or -- or Brant, 


do you know if the other -- I mean you -- and 


understand me; this may not completely cut this 


way as Roger just said, but B and D have gross 


alpha. Do you know where these other 


radionuclides would have been used -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: As far as americium I think -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- as far as americium? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, you know, there are two 


people from Rocky Flats. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: And maybe they should say 


whether -- it seemed to me that the 7-- 71-- 


700-series buildings were where the americium 


work was done. Would that be right Bob, Roger? 


 MR. FALK: Yes, I am thinking that is the place 


where I know that it was done. I don't know 


that it was done other places. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: And also, do we know where the 


thorium work, 232 work was done? My sense it 


may have been done with depleted uranium; that 


may have been done in plant A but I am -- I’m 


certainly not sure of this. Do we know? 

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 DR. ULSH: I seem to recall having seen at some 


point a Chem-Risk report that kind of specified 


where the thorium work was done. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I quoted the Chem-Risk report 


here. Let me see. What did I say? 


 DR. BISTLINE: Roger, but wasn’t that thorium 


232 in -- done in late ’83, mostly? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, no. It did -- it was in 


the 700-series also. 


 DR. BISTLINE: Yeah, there was some in the 700. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think it was both in the 800 


and 700-series. 


 DR. BISTLINE: They both -- They both -- that 


was -- that was the issue. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah. That’s why it’s in 


there. 


 MR. FALK: I’m thinking also it was used in the 


model shop, and I think that was in building 


81, wasn’t it, Bob? 


 DR. BISTLINE: Yes. Yeah, the model shop was 


in 81 but the preponderance of the actual work 


with it, most -- most of it was in 83 and then 


used -- used in plutonium production. Yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: The 800 would be what, A or D? 


No, D is in the 900, right? So the 800-series 

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is -- is plant A? Sorry? 


 MR. FALK: The 800 was -- was the B plant, like 


in boy. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: You’re right. That's right. 


 DR. ULSH: All right. The other issue that you 


brought up was when we were talking about the 


americium content from returns. Roger did give 


a verbal explanation for that but we also 


provided independent documentation for that. 


In fact I remember pretty clearly because it’s 


one of those -- it’s in one of our comment 


response sets and you -- you, Arjun, noticed 


that there was a blurb in there about 


(unintelligible) salt. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, yes, you did send a 


document. I'm sorry. I forgot about that. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So I think -- I think that has 


been covered. So there is -- I have a document 


from you actually that specifies the 


percentages. I forgot about that. Sorry. 


 DR. ULSH: And obviously we -- we got this last 


week so we’ll prepare responses. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Do we have any -- any impression 


on how many people would have been affected by 

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these other radionuclide exposures? 


Specifically americium, thorium, U233, curium, 


neptunium? Are they -- I just don’t have a 


sense of how -- what the source -- the 


magnitude of the source (unintelligible) 


potential people involved. 


 DR. ULSH: I’m not saying that that information 


is not available but I don't have it in my head 


right now. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Right. 


 DR. ULSH: Anyone on the phone have anything on 


that? But only speak if you know what you’re 


saying is reliable. 


 DR. BEHLING: This is Hans. I do have a 


question regarding the MDA values for chest 


counting that are stated in I guess this is -- 


let’s see here. This is in -- on page 69 of 


the TBD. I -- if it’s the addendum or 


attachment and they have MDA values for 


americium in the years ’64 through ’68 that are 


in the order of 1, 2, 3 or so nanocuries. And 


I’m having a tough time getting to that kind of 


a number given the interference that you would 


get from K40 and potentially other nuclides 


that the person may have based on our comments 

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and -- and the discussions at the last working 


group meeting where we looked at the particular 


claim that I had raised up where the individual 


had supposedly ingested deer meat and the 


interference it caused, and the limited ability 


to see the -- the plutonium -- or no, the 


uranium 235. And I’m having a tough time 


looking at these numbers and -- and realizing 


that the 59.5 KeV photon wouldn’t have similar 


problems in terms of detectability with a 4x4 


sodium iodide crystal. 


DR. NETON: Well, that was my -- that was my 


question, Hans. Was this referred to be a 4x4 


sodium iodide detector that was used for 


urinalysis? 


 DR. BEHLING: Yes, this was the -- a Y-12 


situation and in the early years they also used 


the 4x4 sodium iodide. 


 DR. NETON: Where? At Rocky? 


 DR. BEHLING: No, this was at Y-12. 


DR. NETON: That’s my point. I think that you 


wouldn’t use a large volume detector like that 


when you’re measuring 60 KeV. If you had a 


thinner sodium iodide detector the cross-


section for the 1.46 MeV photons would be very 

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small and -- and have a much higher, you know, 


100 percent efficiency for something below 100 


KeV so --


DR. BEHLING: Yeah, I -- I -- I realize -- I 


realize that but I’m looking at the Rocky Flats 


TBD and there is a table. It doesn’t have the 


numbers here but it is I guess an attachment 


that says summary of MDA for the in vivo lung 


counts at Rocky Flats. And for the 1964 


through ’68 time frame they give you two 


systems, one -- two values, one for minimum 


system and standard system; and they give it to 


you in units of nanocuries. And they range 


somewhere between one to four nanocuries as the 


MDA value for americium. And I’m having a 


tough time getting to that number or that level 


of sensitivity given the problems that we 


discussed in behalf of the Y-12 case. 


 DR. NETON: But that’s my point, Hans. You 


need to compare what kind of detectors they 


were using. 


 DR. BEHLING: Well, in that case they used the 


4x4, too. 


 MR. FALK: Hans, this is Roger Falk. If you’d 


look on page 56, it basically describes the 4x4 

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detector as being four inches in diameter and 


four millimeters thick. So we’re talking about 


a mixture of the metric and the English system 


of units and we’re talking about a very thin 


sodium iodide crystal. 


 DR. BEHLING: Okay. I -- I recognize the 


difference now. I’m looking at -- I just 


looked at the table and it said 4x4 and I had 


assumed it was 4x4 inches. You’re correct. 


It’s 4x4 millimeters, four inches by four 


millimeters. Okay. I stand corrected. 


 DR. ULSH: All right. Rocket scientists have 


had the same issue, mixing English and metrics. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Is there anything else 


left on the other radionuclide topic? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, so basically you’re going 


to get back to us on -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: As far as the gross alpha. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, and the one -- the one 


depleted plutonium 241 is resolved. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Is resolved? Okay. 


DR. ULSH: Okay. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: That -- That one is resolved. 


The other ones we’ll -- we’ll get responses 


for. 

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 DR. ULSH: I think you listed seven issues, 


Arjun? Yeah, seven issues there at the end. 


Which one is it that you’re saying is -- 


DR. MAKHIJANI: The one that I noted was 


resolved by your comment just now was the -- 


let’s see -- the second -- the second americium 


issue, plutonium depleted americium 241 which I 


think is C2, item 2 under section C. So if one 


-- the issue to if one accepts the NIOSH 


statements, et cetera. So that -- I forgot 


about the document you sent me. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And then make sure that -- I mean 


saw the other central issue as being can you 


use gross alpha for all these other 


radionuclides? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Is it there? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Or what -- Yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Do you have the data? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Was it used? Yeah. And we 


understand that if -- when in doubt you’re 


going to assume the worst case radionuclides 


but you have to have some data to do that and 


you’re going to check that. And that covers 


all those other sub-sections; is that -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: That’s -- That’s the --

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That’s the big issue, really. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Okay. I don’t want to -- 


I don’t want to narrow it down from seven 


issues to two without thoroughly reading this. 


 DR. ULSH: Go ahead. It would make my life 


easier. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: If you look at the uranium 


issue six on page seven it says, you know, the 


-- all about uranium 233 and the 700-series 


building and --


 MR. GRIFFON: I guess -- I guess if I can 


consolidate, I mean what I want to understand 


is how are you going to reconstruct doses for 


those other radionuclides? And if it’s gross 


alpha, you know, demonstrate where you have the 


gross alpha available for the time periods of 


interest and the other thing I just mentioned 


was the magnitude of these first items. Are 


they -- Are they big, you know? Is it -- Is 


it large quantities, small quantities? A great 


deal of people potentially exposed or very few 


people potentially exposed? You know, that 


will give us a sense, too, of how -- 


 DR. ULSH: Well, we know for some of them -- 


for like neptunium springs to mind, and maybe 

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curium although don’t hold me to that; they 


were in tracer quantities. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That’s what I thought, right. 


Right. 


 DR. ULSH: But I’m not prepared on the other 


ones. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. BISTLINE: That gets into classified stuff, 


U233 and the curium tracers. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So to the extent you can outline 


that in -- in writing to us without getting 


into classified, you know, that would be 


helpful, too, so we can understand the problem 


in terms of the whole overall class, you know. 


Okay. Is that it? Is that it, Arjun? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, that’s it. I mean 


there’s the -- there’s the data for the other 


radionuclides and the americium specific data 


interpretations but the americium there are two 


questions. There’s the gap up to ’63 and then 


there’s the interpretation of measurements 


which may be less of an issue than is in the 


memo. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And I’m going to maybe get a few 


minutes before lunch. And I don’t want to go 

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into data reliability with just a few minutes. 


 D&D WORK
 

But this question of D&D work, it’s the last 


item on my agenda. And the question basically 


I think is how those nine proposed -- it’s not 


outlined in the site profile, and I don’t think 


it’s addressed in the evaluation report. Maybe 


it is but it’s covered in the class -- 


 DR. ULSH: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- so I guess that’s what we want 


to understand, how doses would be reconstructed 


for those workers. 


 DR. ULSH: Have you -- it’s kind of a big 


topic. I know SC&A sent us over a list of the 


questions that they had. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: So do you want to go ahead and do 


that now or --


 MR. GRIFFON: Or maybe -- Maybe it’s -- Maybe 


it’s too -- I mean we can break a little early 


I suppose. Some of us have to get on a call in 


between anyway so --


Can you -- can you -- can you give us a 


preview, Brant? Is there -- 


 DR. ULSH: Sure. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Is there potentially going to be 


a supplement to the evaluation report or you 


don’t think so at this point? 


 DR. ULSH: I don’t think so at this point. We 


know that the external dosimetry systems that 


were used in the D&D era are the same as those 


that we used in the production era, Panasonic 


TLD. The big question that SC&A focused on -- 


and Joe, feel free to jump in and correct me -- 


was the use of BZ’s, breathing zone monitors, 


lapel air samplers. So that would be the big 


issue I think that we’ll want to talk about 


when we begin after lunch. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Because every model we’ve 


-- we’ve so far seen is -- all -- everything is 


based on urinalysis data. 


 DR. ULSH: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Now, we’re in a different era 


where they did BZ. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And the other issue is just 


the availability of records for what, you know, 


arguably are transient workers in the sense 


that the sub-contractors come and go. I think 


some question about whether the second and 


third tier sub-contractor, whether those 

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records were accessible, you know, that kind of 


thing. 


 DR. ULSH: And Gene Potter, are you still on 


the line? Okay, we’ll try to -- 


 MR. POTTER: Yes. Yes, I am on the call. 


 DR. ULSH: All right. We’ll definitely have 


Gene on line for that discussion because he was 


employed at the site during that era. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, why don’t -- then why don’t 


we reconvene at -- can we do quarter of one or 


quarter of two? Quarter of two? 


All right. We’re -- We’re going to break now 


and reconvene at quarter of two. 


 (Whereupon, a lunch recess was held from 12:50 


p.m. to 2:00 p.m.) 


DR. WADE: Board members on the -- the call: 


Mike are you there? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yes, I’m here. 


 DR. WADE: Are there any other Board members 


besides Mike, Mark and Wanda? 


(No response) 


DR. WADE: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. I think we’ll go into 


-- well, do you want to do D&D or data 


reliability? It doesn’t really matter which 

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order. 


 DR. ULSH: Gene, are you back? Are you on 


line? 


 MR. POTTER: Yes, I am. I found my mute button 


this time. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Then why don’t -- why don’t we 


discuss the D&D issue. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You can continue. 


 DR. ULSH: Joe, do you want to lead the 


discussion? Do you want to walk through your 


D&D questions or what do you want to do? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, we can do that. I think 


a little -- little context or background. At 


the Advisory Board meeting the Board raised -- 


I think it was Mark raised the question of how 


D&D would be handled because thus far within 


the SEC class definition time period. And in 


the process of looking at that issue, since 


this was a new issue we felt the approach would 


be to come up with essentially questions to 


scope the issue and to raise what we thought 


were the perfect questions in terms of dose 


reconstructibility and to provide those to 


Brant and NIOSH as input. We understood that 

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there was an ongoing review of the question 


already underway so this was really something 


to complement that review. And that’s about 


where it was left. I think this was going back 


a couple weeks ago. And there’s a set of 


questions which I sent to the Board as well as 


to Brant and we have those sets of questions 


and we certainly can go through those. Again I 


-- I see these as really going in preliminary 


set of here’s the kinds of questions looking at 


this really for the first time that I would 


raise as a, you know, first order set of issues 


and then go from there. I mean I think as we 


unfold this thing I guess there might be some 


other questions or issues or information needed 


but certainly this -- this is what struck us as 


the pertinent ones. I guess the first 


question, and again I guess everybody has a 


copy of this -- well, it’s just really 


questions about, you know, we -- we understand 


that lapel sampling in fact was a -- a key 


screening technique. This is certainly a big 


change in terms of how monitoring was done from 


the production workers. And a lot of our 


questions on lapel samplers and when bioassays 

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would come into play really revolved around 


that. I think somebody even raised a question 


in -- in a public meeting as to, you know, how 


bioassays were in fact conducted. And the next 


question on DAC hour analysis, how that might 


have took precedence over who might normally 


get monitored. So our first question really 


was how were the individual workers selected to 


wear the samplers in the first place? You have 


a lot of these D&D workers coming in and out of 


operations all the time. It wasn’t clear to us 


were they, you know, all sampled? Were they 


all wearing lapel samplers? Was it a -- this 


goes back to some of the original questions we 


had on who gets badged. Which ones would be 


selected to wear lapel samplers and what 


proportion of the total D&D population that one 


would expect to be on the site at Rocky Flats. 


Now, almost by definition after ’93 almost 


everybody was associated with D&D so that -- 


our -- our -- our thinking, you know, how was 


that done and what does that tell us about the 


distribution. And procedurally, you know, the 


process as we understand it would be bioassays 


being conducted when in fact lapel sampling 

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results were elevated but we’re not quite sure 


about that. That’s -- That’s a question mark 


in our minds. 


 DR. ULSH: The first thing I think we have to 


be clear about is that lapel samplers were used 


not in place of bioassay but in addition to 


bioassay. They still had a bioassay program in 


place and I’ll rely on Gene to maybe fill in 


some of the -- texture some of the details 


here. But the lapel samplers were used in 


addition to bioassay samplings, a real time 


indicator. And I think, and Gene, I -- I’m 


stepping out on a limb here -- once you -- once 


you hit a certain number of DAC hours, might 


have been 20. I don't know. That’s the number 


that sticks in my head. That was the trigger 


for a special -- for a bioassay but that was in 


addition to the routine bioassay program that 


was in place. Is that correct, Gene? 


 MR. POTTER: Yes. Most of the time the actual 


workplace indicator as documented was 40 DAC 


hours but you’re correct; 20 was sometimes used 


by the building personnel to, you know, give 


them like a early warning level. 


 DR. ULSH: So the thing to -- to remember here 

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is that these BZ samples were used as a real 


time indicator. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Now, did all the workers have 


BZ sampling done, all the D&D workers, or was 


it just the active hands-on D&D workers? How 


was that done? 


 DR. ULSH: I think the answer is no, not all 


workers were on BZ’s, but Gene, do you have any 


insights on who would have been and who 


wouldn’t? 


 MR. POTTER: That’s not an easy question to 


answer because it was primarily based on the 


radiological engineering judgment with a couple 


of possible exceptions. Certainly in supplied 


air work for instance. Usually there was -- 


when we’re talking the –- clean air suits of 


level B or bubble suits some people call them. 


The lapel -- lapel sampling was almost always 


done in those cases but other than that it was 


kind of a RAD-engineering judgment supplemented 


by some of the -- the guidance documents that 


we’ve documented there in this response. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: So the lapel sampling was a 


trigger for more frequent bioassay? If 


everybody was bioassay this was a screening 

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tool. 


 MR. POTTER: Right. Lapel sampling we did not, 


speaking from internal dosimetry’s point of 


view, did not separate lapel sampling from any 


-- any air sampling. If you received an 


estimated 40 DAC hours by whatever, general air 


sampling, you know, job specific air sampling, 


whatever, if an estimated 40 DAC hours was 


received by the worker he was then subject to 


being sent to internal dosimetry. At the end 


of the program that had evolved to that 40 DAC 


hours had to be received over a relatively 


short period of time to figure pico bioassay 


and otherwise the -- the dose would be assigned 


from the DAC hours. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Was there -- I mean it seems to 


me it doesn’t make a lot of sense that there 


was a routine bioassay program in place because 


the reason they put these -- these BZ programs 


in place was to avoid the cost of the bioassay 


programs. 


 MR. POTTER: Not in the case of Rocky Flats. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It wasn’t the case? 


 MR. POTTER: No. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It wasn’t scaled back at all or ­
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-


 MR. POTTER: They had (unintelligible) account. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: We used lapel air samplers at 


Rocky Flats for contamination control, to 


control the amount of airborne contamination in 


the workplace. That was our primary use for 


lapel air sampling because we used a lot of 


pappers, a lot of full-face, different 


protection factors, and so that’s how we knew 


that the contamination levels were building up 


too high and we were starting to get 


overexposed. Primarily that was the use of the 


lapel sampler. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But did you -- the question is 


did you stay on bioassay programs throughout? 


Did they still do urine sampling throughout? 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Yeah, we did routine -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Yeah, we did routine bioassay 


all the way through the D&D. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I guess -- I guess this 


question stands though. It doesn’t, you know, 


there’s this question of how sampling at 40 DAC 


hours being some kind of a trigger or stream 


for more frequent bioassay. I guess I don’t 

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understand. 


 DR. ULSH: I think -- I think what happened 


there -- is this --


 MR. POTTER: I would not term -- this is Gene 


Potter again. I would not term it as more 


frequent but special bioassay. 


 DR. NETON: Well, I was thinking, is this after 


1989? Is this the time frame that we’re 


speaking of? Because after (unintelligible) in 


1989 there was a sort of requirement that you 


had to monitor everyone who had the potential 


to receive 100 millirem exposure internally. 


And it was well known at the time that bioassay 


samples were not adequate to demonstrate 


compliance with that requirement so I think a 


lot sites went to supplemental sampling with 


BZ’s to -- to help shore up their program so to 


speak when they had what they would call a 


technology shortfall. 


 DR. ULSH: Al? Al Robinson, are you on? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Some cut their bioassay. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, I think that another point to 


make is that in all of the Rocky Flats dose 


reconstructions we’re going to be relying on 


the urinalysis data. We’re not going to be 

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assigning internal dose based on BZ results. 


So that’s the important thing to keep in mind. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think that is important. 


I wasn’t clear that -- that they had adequate 


bioassay going forward for D&D workers. So 


that’s one -- one of the primary questions in 


my mind anyway. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. The second issue I 


think we did touch on. This is DAC hours 


analysis. There was a reliance on DAC hour 


analysis but it didn’t substitute for bioassay. 


I guess that would be the answer for the 


question of reliance on DAC hour analysis. 


This -- This is a issue as part of this number 


two, December 1st, ’93, Defense Board report 


noted sensitivity of this -- of the Selected 


Alpha Air Monitors -- SAAMs -- were only 42 DAC 


hours, averaged over eight hours. That 


probably didn’t match up with the RAD Control 


Manual. I guess the question of whether the 


air sampling sensitivity was as sufficient to, 


actually do this kind of monitoring. 


 DR. ULSH: Gene, I’m going to hand that one off 


to you if you’re --

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 MR. POTTER: Okay. I guess one of the -- the 


important points that we need to make here is 


that we never relied on strictly one workplace 


indicator to trigger special bioassay. And so 


even if the SAAMs were not as accurate or any ­

- as sensitive as one would like, you still had 


personal contamination nasal swipes and a host 


of other things that would -- would normally be 


telling. And then eventually CAMs replaced 


SAAMs when the heavy D&D started and the CAMs, 


of course, were very sensitive. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think what clarifies 


this for me again is that these were all 


collectively techniques to trigger special 


bioassays as opposed to routine. And I think 


that answers some of the concerns we had, not 


distinguishing between the two. 


 MR. POTTER: That's correct. And we --


remember we -- we had regulatory. We -- We 


were going after 100 millirem intakes or less. 


 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson. Could I ask 


who is the DOE contractor for the Rocky site at 


that time? 


 MR. POTTER: Starting in ’89 for the infamous 


raid it was Rockwell, replaced by EG&G until 

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’95, mid-’95 Jack Kaiser Hill Company came in. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. Thank you 


 MR. GRIFFON: I just -- the database, the HIS 


20, as I’ve been corrected on, the database 


records I think everything we’ve got so far 


goes up to ’88; is that right? Or do we have 


later years? I’m just asking because I don't 


know. 


 DR. ULSH: Are you thinking of the co-worker 


data because for that we used CEDR for internal 


and that went up through ’89. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It went up through ’89? We don’t 


-- we don’t have any of these, I mean in -- in 


aggregate, in database sense, we don’t have ’89 


through -- which would cover the D&D period, do 


we? 


 DR. ULSH: We’re currently working on expanding 


the internal co-worker data in response to, you 


know, the D&D questions. The external coworker data does go up through 2005 I think. 


The internal does not. It goes up to ’89 and 


we’re currently working right now on expanding 


it from the D&D era. And that will be based on 


HIS 20 data, not -- not CEDR, for the later 


years. 

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 DR. MAKHIJANI: But Brant, when you include the 


data from the ‘90s in the co-workers do you -- 


do you -- how -- are you making a separate coworker model? How do you integrate that? 
I 


mean it seems like completely different kind of 


work. Wouldn’t that data be an overall coworker model or how consistent with the job 


type --


 DR. ULSH: It’s a year by year analysis just 


like the previous idea but we’ll be using -- 


oh, sorry -- previous co-worker data, but we’re 


going to be using data from HIS 20 so we’ll be 


using for the radionuclides: uranium, 


plutonium, americium; we’ll be using the data 


for those years from HIS 20. So it will 


reflect the D&D -- results from the D&D era. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So it depends on -- on year 


works, not job or department? 


 DR. ULSH: Exactly. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Like the other. 


 DR. ULSH: Just like the other. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. So you feel the missed 


dose with the co-worker data (unintelligible)? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Or the 50th or the 95th -- 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: -- percent. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Percent. 


 DR. ULSH: Now, wait a minute. Not missed 


dose. Unmonitored dose. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Unmonitored. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Unmonitored. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'm sorry. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I meant unmonitored. 


 MR. GRIFFON: On the -- just going back to the 


routine monitoring question, was -- was 


monitoring -- I mean was everyone at the site 


on a routine bioassay program during that D&D 


period or was it RWP specific or -- I’m just 


trying to get a sense. 


 DR. ULSH: I think the answer is no, Mark, not 


everyone was on routine bioassay. I think it 


was only people who were judged to have 100 


millirem or greater potential. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Potential, right. Right. 


 DR. ULSH: Gene, do you have any more insights 


to fill in on that? 


 MR. POTTER: Yes. We implemented the 100 


millirem per year from all intakes requirement 


by essentially bioassaying or putting everyone 

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141 

in a routine bioassay program if they were RAD-


worker II trained or RCT trained. So in other 


words, that’s the minimum level of training 


required to work in a contamination area. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Now, would that training be 


specific to, you know, Kaiser-Hill, or would 


that flow down to all the subs? 


 MR. POTTER: It was all the subs. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: So all the subs who were doing 


their own training, that would be covered? 


 MR. POTTER: Right. And most of them used the 


site training. I think there were probably a 


few exceptions but -- where they had shown 


equivalent training. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And they’d all --


 MR. POTTER: And this RAD-worker II training is 


-- is a DOE-wide program and uses DOE-wide 


standards. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And they’d all be picked up on 


the -- on the overall site bioassay program 


though, right? The subs and everyone, yeah. 


 MR. POTTER: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And they’d all be in the same 


database system? 


 MR. POTTER: Yes. 

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142

 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson again. On the 


routine bioassay sample that took place after 


you implemented the -- the BZ breathers and 


then the SAAMs and everything else, what was 


the definition of routine bioassay? Is that 


monthly? Is that yearly? Is that quarterly? 


What was the -- What was the practice there? 


 MR. POTTER: Okay. It was annual urine 


bioassay and lung counting as frequently as 


equipment and workload permitted. That varied 


probably between 18 and 24 months, most 


commonly --


 MR. GIBSON: Sorry? 


 MR. POTTER: -- depending on how many rooms are 


up and -- and that sort of thing. 


 DR. ULSH: Could you repeat that, Gene? 


Between 18 and how many months? 


 MR. POTTER: Eighteen to 24 months I would say 


was -- would be the -- the average lung count 


frequency. And since these folks were being 


bioassayed based on training, it’s a little 


difficult to audit that because people would 


sometimes let their training expire and so 


forth. And then they would be picked up on the 


program again once their training was current. 

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And then I should mention one more thing. 


Towards the very end, and I’d have to think or 


look up when exactly this took place, but 


towards the end we also required for lung 


counting I believe or that the person had made 


an entry into ACA within the last (inaudible) 


months. 


 MR. GIBSON: And as far --


 MR. POTTER: There were some other wrinkles 


that were thrown in. Basically they were 


trying to reduce some costs. 


 MR. GIBSON: Excuse me if this has already -- 


this is Mike Gibson again. Excuse me if this 


has already been covered but on a particular 


project how many of the workers in the room or 


in the area, general area wore the BZ monitor? 


Was that 100 percent or 50 percent or 25 


percent? 


 MR. POTTER: This is Gene again. I don’t think 


that we have that data again. That was kind of 


a RAD engineering decision, professional 


judgment type thing. Again, all of them would 


have been on a routine monitoring program for 


urine bioassay and lung counting. That was --


and that was a yearly bioassay. Yearly urine 

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sampling generally if they made entries and 


lung counting at 12 to 24 months, somewhere in 


there. 


 DR. ULSH: Now, Gene, is it possible that they 


would have been on more frequent schedules than 


that? I mean is that the minimum schedule? 


 MR. POTTER: The special bioassays were taken 


any time there was an -- a incident so people ­

- yes, people were on occasion sampled more 


frequently than that. 


 DR. ULSH: But no one would have been on a 


routine say quarterly urine sample schedule? 


 MR. POTTER: No, there was, you know, RWP 


specific sampling generally for tritium and in 


some cases uranium where people received far 


more specific -- frequent samples but that was 


RWP based, not what we would consider routine. 


 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson again. Was 


this the historical practice at Rocky Flats for 


bioassay or was there a time when they were on 


say quarterly -- all RAD workers were on 


quarterly? And was it historical or was there 


a point in time that that changed? And if 


there was a point in time that it went from the 


BZ’s to the annual bioassay about what time 

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period was that? 


 MR. POTTER: It -- I’m only speaking of the 


so-called D&D era. 


 MR. GIBSON: Correct. 


 MR. POTTER: And so during that period of time 


the program remained relatively constant with 


various tweaking here and there, you know, 


frequently to, you know, look at cost savings 


and so forth. So I mean --


 MR. GIBSON: So technically -- this is Mike 


Gibson. Technically the D&D era ended when 


(unintelligible) one called an end to the Cold 


War. But if I understand any of Rocky’s 


histories right, I believe the heavy-duty and 


get serious D&D work probably started in about 


the mid-90s, maybe -- maybe a little later in 


the 90s; is that correct? 


 MR. POTTER: Kaiser-Hill came in in 1995, mid1995, and I would say it took them probably a 


year to really get going, something like ’96 


through of course 2005. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. Thank you. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Did -- go ahead. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Gene, the -- the petition 


raises a question of the security guards who I 

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guess would not fall into the category you just 


mentioned of people who opted to have radiation 


training and therefore were on routine bioassay 


if I remember correctly. Right, Tony? What --


What -- What about -- What about the exposure 


assessment for workers like security guards or 


workers who were in the general area because of 


the, you know, large volume of dust when the 


buildings are coming down, contaminated things 


were being decommissioned and so on? 


 MR. POTTER: First of all, I don’t agree that 


security guards were not RAD worker II trained. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, I -- I don't know. I 


mean I’m -- I’m just -- 


 MR. POTTER: Yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I’m just raising an example 


that was given in the petition. 


 MR. POTTER: Yeah, I would say that 99-plus 


percent of them were RAD worker trained, RAD 


worker II trained. And as a matter of fact far 


more people were RAD worker II trained than 


would have been required to be RAD worker II 


trained. Includes many administrative types 


because they might have to go into a building 


and would not necessarily want to be escorted 

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or -- or, you know, for whatever reason we -- 


this -- the concept of basing routine bioassay 


on RAD worker II training is a valid one; 


however, it’s difficult to control how many 


people get that training. Some of them saw it 


as a red badge of courage, you know, employment 


security or something and so we had far more 


people in the routine bioassay program than the 


real heavy-duty D&D workers. But certainly it 


included all the heavy D&D workers. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Wasn’t there a DOE order that 


forced us to reduce the number of RAD worker II 


just like the beryllium? Didn’t we make a 


conscientious effort to reduce those that were 


exposed and how many dosimeters we were 


issuing? 


 MR. POTTER: There could have been something 


like that. However, I never saw the effects at 


the -- at the operational level. It seemed 


like we always had far more people with the 


qualifications than who actually needed it, and 


far more people wearing dosimeters than 


actually needed them except for maybe on a very 


occasional basis. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I guess I -- just going back 

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to your comment -- this is Joe Fitzgerald -- 


about who was badged, and the trigger was the 


RAD worker II training obviously. I came 


across a number of Defense Board -- Defense 


Nuclear Facility Safety Board reports in the 


early 90s, and this was a recurrent theme that 


they had in their reports about the fact that 


so-called visiting workers, workers that came 


on as sub-contractors and went off. They were 


concerned about their not being bioassayed 


because their training was being done elsewhere 


and their status was transient status. That --


That -- That, again I can provide copies of 


the Defense B reports but that seemed to be a 


concern in the early 90s. Going back to what 


you were saying before, is there any 


explanation for why that kept being surfaced 


and was there in fact some gaps as far as who 


got bioassayed by virtue of training? 


 MR. POTTER: First of all, let me -- let me 


agree that termination bioassay is always a 


problem and has been a historic problem at most 


sites that use a lot of subcontractors, and 


Rocky Flats certainly was no exception. And we 


didn’t really get a handle on that ‘til I would 

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say ’97/’98 when we were able to strengthen the 


contract language imposing fines for companies 


who did not run people through. Getting people 


into the bioassay program was never an issue in 


my estimation because most all the areas until 


the very end required dosimeters; it was very 


conservative posting levels for external 


dosimeters. And as people came in to get their 


external dosimeters if they were RAD worker II 


trained they were immediately sent over to 


internal dosimetry to in-process and they were 


placed in the bioassay program. Now, a lot of 


the subs, you know, had a policy that when the 


job was done they were going to lay the people 


off. They were going to give them no notice, 


and so this created the -- the possible 


termination problem. On the other hand, from 


day one those folks were subject to special 


bioassay if they were involved in any 


incidents. (Unintelligible) nasal swipes and 


all that sort of stuff, general air sampling. 


If there was any workplace trigger -- remember 


again, we’re going after 100 millirem or less 


CEDE so that was always in effect. And the 


fact that we, you know, missed some termination 

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bioassays, as most of the DOE complex would 


have during this time, does not have an overall 


effect I don’t think on -- you know, there were 


no peak intakes likely to have been missed by 


that, just simply the fact that you did not get 


an exit urine sample. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But in terms of -- do you have a 


sense of how many individuals that might 


involve? It’s probably a hard number to get a 


handle on. 


 MR. POTTER: Actually there are records of 


that, of -- of termination bioassay sampling. 


The statistics were very difficult to do as you 


can imagine. People switching companies, did 


they really leave or, you know, did they just 


switch companies and therefore, you know, they 


shouldn’t count as a missed termination 


bioassay. But we did attempt to do that. That 


was required by DOE actually. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I guess I mean --


 MR. POTTER: Those records -- Those records 


exist. 


 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson. If -- If 


people took a termination bioassay and the 


company ran the analysis on that sample, how 

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would they determine the date of intake? 


 MR. POTTER: The course involved for the sample 


was above the decision level. There would be 


no need to determine an intake date. 


 MR. GIBSON: Well, wouldn’t that determine the 


amount of dose the individual may have gotten 


depending on the date of it? 


 MR. POTTER: If the result was below decision 


level that was a non-detect. 


 MR. GIBSON: No, I'm sorry. Maybe I didn’t say 


that correctly. Maybe you didn’t hear me 


properly. If it was above the decision level 


how would you determine the date of intake, 


because that would specifically determine the 


amount of intake they could have gotten. If --


If they got the intake a week before you might 


have had a very high reading. That reading 


could still be high and they could have got the 


date of intake four years ago. How would you 


determine the date of intake? 


 MR. POTTER: Okay. So this is for specifically 


asking about termination bioassay? 


 MR. GIBSON: At this point, yes. 


 MR. POTTER: Okay. There were only a very few 


cases where the results were above the 

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detection limit that I can recall. 


 MR. GIBSON: Uh-huh. 


 MR. POTTER: And of course the first thing we 


would do would be to try and go after that 


individual for additional samples to verify, 


make sure that wasn’t a false positive and 


such. But say that was borne out, and I can’t 


give you any -- I don’t recall any specific 


instances but -- because they were definitely 


rare -- but say that were to be borne out that 


that was in fact activity, and we would, you 


know, interview the individual. We would 


contact the RAD engineering folks in the 


locations where he worked. And if worse came 


to worse generally you would use the mid-point 


from between samples, going back to his last 


non-detect and assign a dose that way. Of 


course, all this has nothing to do with what 


the NIOSH process would be. 


 MR. GIBSON: Well, I think it does. I think 


the amount a dose the person got deter-- could 


determine the cause of -- probability of 


causation. 


 MR. POTTER: Right. But you’re asking me how 


we would have assessed the dose. 

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 DR. NETON: Right. Mike, we -- this is Jim 


Neton. We wouldn’t necessarily use their dose 


assignment for our dose reconstruction program 


here. 


 MR. GIBSON: I understand that, Jim, but you 


would go back to the data and -- and try to redetermine a dose on your own. 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. GIBSON: But still, I’m just trying to ask 


what are the policies or the procedures, maybe 


I should be more familiar with them, on how one 


would determine when the dose of intake 


occurred because that would directly affect the 


amount of dose the person got. 


 MR. POTTER: Right. And my answer is if we 


could not determine an intake date by those -- 


interviewing individuals, the RAD engineering, 


looking at his health physics records, which is 


one thing I think I forgot to mention, see if 


he was involved in any incidents and so forth. 


If you could not determine a date any other way 


we would have assigned the dose using the 


midpoint. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. So if they were on a -- 


I’ll just ask this question because I don't 

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know the exact answer and maybe you or Mark or 


someone else could help me. So if you went to 


the midpoint of their last bioassay sample and 


say it was nine months ago. Say they had --


they had had their annual three months before ­

- you know, nine months before they left. That 


still leaves a four and a half month window of 


opportunity on either side for the better or 


for the worse on what kind of dose they may 


have received; is that right? 


 MR. POTTER: That is correct. 


 MR. GIBSON: Thank you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Let me just on the termination 


sampling I mean, I guess, and -- and, you know, 


Brant, you’re looking to pull this data 


together from ’89 on. But also I mean my sense 


would be if it’s not a large population of 


termination sampling that’s missed, I would 


think that your co-worker model could be used 


to apply this. The only thing I would say is 


if -- if you’re missing a large number of these 


subs then I’d get concerned. From my 


experience that the subs did the dirtier work 


often so your -- your co-worker population 


could not be representative. You know, you 

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could have that issue. But if it’s a small 


population that you’re missing I would think 


this -- this could probably be resolved by 


applying your co-worker model even if you use 


the 95th or whatever. Am I --


DR. NETON: I think that’s pretty much how we 


applied --


 MR. GRIFFON: How you’d handle it, right. 


 MR. POTTER: This is Gene. Let me just observe 


that probably the dirtiest work was done -- in 


fact done by steelworkers. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: On the exit sampling, Gene, when 


-- exactly when did Kaiser-Hill no longer make 


that a requirement for exiting the site 


employment as far as bioassay and body 


counting? 


 MR. POTTER: Can you ask that again, please? 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Kaiser-Hill in the end no longer 


required exit surveys, bioassay or body count. 


When exactly did that come down? 


 MR. POTTER: That’s what I thought you said. 


I’m not aware that that ever happened. We lung 


counted -- we did exit bioassays; we preferred 


to do them by lung counting just because if 


you’ve got a hit the individual is still at -- 

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in your hands as you know the results right 


away rather than, you know, sending a urine 


sample off for 30 days and then trying to track 


the person down. So we preferred to do exit 


sampling by lung counting and at the end of 


course you only had urine available for the 


last few months when most everything was down 


anyway. And in some cases people wanted urine 


and so we always obliged them and did lung 


counting and urine. 


 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson. Just to 


answer your question, Tony. I don't know about 


Rocky but I know the same contractor ran Mound 


where I worked and the exit bioassay sampling 


physical lung count and everything else was 


optional. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Absolutely. I knew the answer 


to his question because I left Rocky Flats 


after 26 years -- 27 years with -- with neither 


lung count or bioassay and Dr. Bob Bistline had 


been in more than one meeting with me when the 


contractor tried to remove the lung counter 


prematurely. And I had the DOE presence and we 


were assured that it would stay as long as 


possible but then in the end it was urine 

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samples and then after that it was, you know, 


absolutely nothing. 


 MR. POTTER: Let me make it clear that we -- to 


do exit urine sampling, of course you’d have to 


give somebody a urine kit and say, you know, 


please return this if they were leaving that 


day you had -- so you had no notice. So we 


always offered people at least while I was 


there the opportunity to refuse exit bioassay 


sampling rather than let them take a kit and 


just throw it away or something. 


 MR. GIBSON: Right. I -- I did not say that ­

- I did not say it was not offered but I was 


agreeing with Tony that at least the practice 


at Mound -- and I know we’re not discussing 


Mound, we’re discussing Rocky -- but there 


seems like a lot of similarities between the 


contractor. It was optional, not mandatory. 


 MR. POTTER: Right. I don't think there’s any 


practical way to make it mandatory. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I got -- I got another 


question. I guess in terms of the last part of 


the EG&G tenure, and I’m talking about the 


early ’90s, there were documented statements 


made by the Defense Board primarily since 

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that’s the source of the reviews that we have 


that EG&G management indicated that the 


sponsoring companies of the subcontractors or 


visiting workers as they were calling them, 


would be responsible for bioassays. I guess 


that leads to my question of to what extent you 


have or did Kaiser have all the bioassay 


records centralized? Were these in fact --


were bioassays done elsewhere? Do records 


exist elsewhere? Do you have any sense of 


that? 


 MR. POTTER: Yeah, my sense is that this -- I’m 


not aware of any specific companies that did 


their own bioassay. And certainly by the end, 


you know, none of them are going to be DOELAP 


accredited. Very -- Very darn few of them 


would have been DOELAP accredited. But during 


the EG&G era I’m not -- I’m not aware of any 


companies doing their own, and if they did it 


would probably have been in addition to 


whatever Rocky Flats required. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I’m -- I’m just 


expressing concern that they apparently were 


expressing that the bioassays were being I 


guess given the responsibility of the other 

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companies. And I’ll send you a documentation. 


I’m -- I’m just reflecting on what we were 


reading in terms of the Defense Board reports. 


 MR. POTTER: Yeah, that might have been a 


little wishful thinking on EG&G management’s 


part. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, it could be. Could be. 


 DR. ULSH: I haven’t seen the language that 


you’re talking about, Joe, but if you -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I’m going to -- I’ll 


give you copies of the reports. These were 


health physics audit reports. The Defense 


Board did I think two or three annual reviews 


of Rocky and this was one of two or three major 


concerns that they kept raising which was this 


question of whether in fact all the workers 


were being bioassayed under the tutelage or, 


you know, oversight of in this case it was 


EG&G. And therefore, that, you know, it was a 


-- a surety that these were being done right 


and --


 DR. ULSH: I’m just wondering if -- and I 


haven’t seen the language. I don't know if 


this is the case or not but could it be 


interpreted that, you know, subcontractor A, 

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you’re responsible to make sure that everyone 


is bioassayed? That’s a little different. 
I 


mean in other words, you’re going to be held 


responsible if your employees aren’t 


bioassayed. 


 MR. FITZGERALD:: Yeah, I’m not -- I’m saying, 


you know, he’s -- he’s doing backup. That’s a 


possible interpretation and we’ll go ahead and 


give you the copies. I think at this point we 


can go ahead and give you the copies of the 


Defense Board reports. But this just gets to 


the question of what you’re saying is as far as 


you know Kaiser and the operating contractor 


pretty much had their arms around all the 


bioassay records, pretty much knew who was 


getting bioassayed then. 


 MR. POTTER: Yes, that’s my belief. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: I guess I’d like to say that, 


you know, I’m going over this in my mind but 


the steelworkers did the bulk of what you call 


the dirty work except for the exception of 


beryllium. The DOE order came down for us to 


reduce the number of beryllium workers. We had 


about 430 beryllium workers at the time so we 


reduced that number grossly to about 70. Then 

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the subcontractors came in and they kicked it 


up to 1,400. Now, I had a plant problems 


meeting with -- with the plant and the 


corporate attorney was present in this plant 


problems meeting, and I was questioning the DOE 


interpretation of reduction of beryllium 


workers because it was a job jurisdiction issue 


for me. I was losing work. I didn’t have the 


qualified workers. So -- So it’s not 


necessarily true that we did do all the dirty 


work because, you know, obviously because we 


added 1,400 new beryllium workers during the 


D&D phase, people who weren’t previously 


exposed. And they were all subcontractors. 


Some -- Dr. Bob, you remember, some of them 


you’ll remember some of them were wearing ankle 


bracelets so -- and we -- we brought in some 


pretty colorful folks in the end to do some of 


the work. So, you know, and I know it’s not 


SEC --


 MR. GRIFFON: These new beryllium workers, 


Tony, were they -- I mean I’m trying to imagine 


the situation where they’d only be cleaning up 


or dealing in beryllium. There must have been 


mixed exposures, right, or potential -- 

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 MR. DEMAIORI: They were doing strip-out, you 


know, ripping out lockers, ripping out, you 


know, strip-out. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So no RAD --


 MR. DEMAIORI: Removing material. 


 MR. GRIFFON: No RAD work at all? Nothing in 


the RAD areas or --


 MR. DEMAIORI: Well, we -- we played games with 


that. We had a three-party agreement that at 


2,000 d per rem the work went to the 


steelworkers. And then our industrial 


relations office decided no, that only meant 


the steelworkers could be counted down below 


2,000. Then it went back to the contractors. 


And then as we got into full swing it even got 


looser. So -- So there were a lot of 


subcontractors working in ACAs. That is to say 


that they weren’t is not true because I’ve got 


hundreds of counts of grievances on this 


subject in particular about -- 


 DR. BISTLINE: That was --

 MR. DEMAIORI: -- jurisdiction. 

 DR. BISTLINE: -- uranium, Mark. A lot of it 

was that these guys were doing. 


MR. DEMAIORI: Mostly 444. A lot were 

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electricians. Gas, electrical ran on us and 


stripped out half the building machines, 


everything. Everything they could get their 


hands on. Colorado Building trades, 865, you 


know. And I -- I have grievance after 


grievance after grievance. And that’s why we 


went into the plant problems meeting because I 


didn’t have the ability to supply the people 


due to the DOE order. We actually removed our 


people from the program. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Just for the clarification, 


everybody who had potential of having 100 


millirem or higher certainly was monitored, 


bioassay badged. Now, workers that the 


radiological engineer would estimate would not 


approach that, what was the -- were they 


unmonitored? Basically it was a judgment call 


not to monitor them? 


 MR. POTTER: Now, as I said, it was based on 


training. It had nothing to do with the RAD 


engineer’s decision there. What I was talking 


about with regard to the RAD engineer’s 


situation or decisions were things like lapel 


samplers. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Lapel samplers? 

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 MR. POTTER: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And so the decision to train 


was based on potential for 100 millirem? 


 MR. POTTER: I'm not sure what the decision to 


train was based on in all cases. Presumably it 


would be people who were required to work in a 


CA or higher but as I said, the site tended to 


overtrain in my opinion. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Even for these subcontractors 


such as Tony was just referencing? 


 MR. POTTER: I’m not familiar with the 


beryllium work but he is correct in other 


industrial hygiene situations as well. 


Asbestos work I think was primarily done by 


subs. RAD work I was talking about, and I was 


thinking of specifically, you know, not only 


the number of incidents which involve 


steelworkers which I was very familiar with but 


also this 2,000 DPM limit that once the 


steelworkers had gotten the building deconned 


(ph) down to that level, then it was turned 


over to construction trades or, you know, and 


say the case of 71, Mac Tech subcontracted to 


complete the work. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: You were -- You were 

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commenting on the fact that you thought too 


many folks were being trained but can you tell 


me how was that determination reached? I mean 


obviously that’s -- that’s the trigger for a 


lot of follow-on monitoring or what have you 


but -- and some decision was made on priority. 


You said perhaps workers that would need to be 


in controlled areas. Was that done by the -- 


basically the health physics staff looked at 


the work, proposed work, and determined who 


would be given RAD worker II? 


 MR. POTTER: I'm not sure that I can answer 


that question. Just make an observation that 


each company seemed to have an idea who they 


wanted trained and who they needed trained. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. So it was a company by 


company judgment based on the criteria? 


 DR. NETON: I think the requirement was that 


you needed RAD workers trained to have 


unescorted access to a contamination area, 


right? 


 MR. POTTER: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: So -- So that -- that was the -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: It wasn’t -- it wasn’t even a 


dose based. It was --

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 DR. NETON: No, it was just unescorted access 


to the contamination area. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All linked to your surveying -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right, so --


 MR. GRIFFON: So that -- therein lies the 


problem. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, the area as far as we’re 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. NETON: If the areas are posted properly 


that’s the criteria. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. That’s the key. 


 DR. NETON: But like you said, many people 


wanted unescorted access because it was a macho 


thing. I just want to be able to go walk 


around the plant myself. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Well, one of the problems we 


were faced with with the 2,000 d per rem rule 


was that was removable. When we signed our 


three-party agreement we also included in an 


HCA under the DOE RAD-COM Manual direct 


contamination that was embedded into the 


concrete. That was 40,000 d per rem per 


centimeters squared. But then DOE revised the 


RAD-COM Manual and removed direct contamination 

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entirely so your subs like Gene Potter 


articulated, Mat Tech, whatever, they were 


removing direct contamination and going into 


HCA’s. They were scabbling the floors, 


removing the concrete where the plutonium 


nitrate had penetrated. So they were creating 


HCA’s from CA’s. And so subcontractors were 


exposed to a large amount of airborne 


radioactivity. Absolutely. Make -- Make no 


mistake. Bartlett Nuclear Services -- 


 DR. BISTLINE: Right. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: -- Mac Tech, some of the other 


subs who were doing that type of work. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think the real test would be to 


look at the database, ’89 to 2006 versus -- and 


I don't know if there’s any record of which 


individuals were -- were or are going to be 


trained. Or -- Or if we could just get a 


sense, ’89 to 2006, just look at that database 


and see how many workers were in the routine 


program versus how many were on site doing D&D. 


And if it’s a high percentage then you could 


account for that --


 DR. NETON: Yeah. Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- that your co-worker model’s 

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going to work. 


 DR. NETON: Exactly. I think the SEC issue -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: -- is resolved. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So we need -- I think that’ll 


answer another question. 


 MR. POTTER: This is Gene again. We 


investigated -- I mean everybody is making a 


point that there was some, you know, 


significant work going on and -- and there was 


significant potential for internal 


contamination, and that is -- that is true. 


And we investigated probably over 200 incidents 


a year and probably assigned dose in about half 


those cases. But outside of wounds, in the 


last ten years or so there were no really big 


intakes. 


 MR. GIBSON: Well, this is Mike Gibson. If I 


heard Mark correctly just a minute ago -- you 


were a little faint, Mark -- but when you 


mentioned --


 MR. GRIFFON: Tired. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- comparing the databases I think 

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you said prior to ’89 and then from maybe ’89 


after. And, you know, I would -- I would 


totally agree with that because if the RAD 


protection program significantly changed, 


whether the professionals deemed it to be 


correct or not, there could have been a lot 


more exposures shown than what there possibly 


could have been based on if they would have 


kept the RAD detection program the way it was 


back in the production days. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think I know what you’re 


getting at, Mike. If -- If the frequency is 


lower in those later years, the way NIOSH -- if 


-- assuming that they have everybody or a large 


percentage of these people every year covered, 


it’s going to fall out because you’ll have -- 


the point you’re getting at is that the minimum 


detectable dose is going to be higher if you 


only have annual urinalysis as opposed to 


quarterly. And -- But that’s going to, you 


know -- that’s -- that might be -- make a 


situation where they’re assigning higher doses 


from the co-worker model. But my real question 


is -- is that -- is there or were there enough 


-- a high enough percentage and were the 

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highest potentially exposed people in this ’89 


to 2006 data, you know, or 2005, whatever. And 


MR. GIBSON: Okay. My point --


MR. GRIFFON: -- co-worker model -- 


MR. GIBSON: My point, Mark, was if you went 


from a quarterly to an annual bioassay sample, 


there could have been, let’s say, exposures 


over the decision limit maybe -- although maybe 


not that high but chronic almost all year long. 


And then at your annual bioassay it may still 


come out above the DL and may not show, you 


know, a rem of exposure, 750 millirems, but 


they could have been getting that chronic all 


year long. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. And that’s -- 


DR. NETON: That’s exactly how we approach it 


for all the other sites that we do. We do a 


missed dose calculation based on exactly those 


type of parameters. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That’s what the co-worker model 


will assume is that it’s a chronic for that 


whole time period and given the MDA of that 


time period of a, you know -- so I think that 


would cover it, Mike, as long as the right 

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people are in the database to begin with. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: As long as there’s enough data 


there, yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: And we do know that with regard to 


that last question, Mark, were they trying to 


monitor the highest exposed people. I mean we 


know exactly what the criteria was for 


monitoring and that was anyone expected to get 


100 millirem a year. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, they (unintelligible) 


anyone who had (unintelligible) -- I mean RAD 


worker II training. 


 DR. NETON: Well, anyone -- anyone who entered 


a contaminated --


 MR. GRIFFON: They’re kind of linked, you know. 


 DR. NETON: Well, anyone who entered a 


contamination area was monitored -- went into a 


monitored program. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Yeah, the RWP would drive that. 


Well -- Well, the minimum requirements for 


entering into a CA. And so those are all, you 


know, matters of record. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean there’s those two things 


going on. Jim’s right. The technology 

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shortfall radionuclide was one thing -- one 


reason for the BZA’s but also the -- the -- I 


think the -- there was a drive to -- to not, 


you know -- to at least limit the number of 


people on a routine program in some sites. 


 DR. NETON: But if you were RAD worker II 


trained you were on a routine sampling no 


matter whether you entered an RCA or not. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. NETON: That’s what I’m hearing. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That’s what I’m hearing, yeah, so 


 DR. NETON: If that’s true --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- if we can determine that -- 


 DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- and it’s a large percentage, I 


think we’re covered. Yeah. Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. That’s the trigger. So 


 DR. MAURO: I’ve got a question and it goes 


back to the movie that we saw in Denver and the 


movie which I found very probable. The 


conversation we’re having around the table 


right now sounds like a very controlled 


situation where people are identified of who’s 

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going to be monitored, who’s going to be where, 


who’s going to do what. And -- but the movie I 


saw showed what I would say from the point of 


view of outdoors, the buildings coming down. 


What I saw was large structures being torn 


down, large numbers of people outdoors, large 


amounts of dust and plumes, airborne 


radioactivity moving out in an outdoor setting. 


And so the story we’re talking about now sounds 


like a very well controlled health physics 


operation. But the movie I saw shows something 


that seems to be a bit different in terms of 


all of these folks -- and maybe you could help 


me out. All of outdoors, I’m imagining large 


numbers of people outdoors, working through the 


destruction work outdoors when the building 


came down. I’m not quite sure when those 


buildings actually were brought down. Was that 


at a point where all of the -- I guess the hot 


stuff or the hotter stuff has already been I 


guess carefully archeologically removed so to 


speak? And what came down was basically 


fundamentally clean? Or -- Or do we have a 


situation where we could have had circumstances 


where when the -- when that dust cloud puff 

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came up and moved out there might have been 


some workers out there who were never 


monitored, never part of the monitoring 


program, that could have been exposed to levels 


that were detectible or of some concern? I’d 


like to hear a little bit more about that. 


 DR. BISTLINE: Maybe I can speak to it some 


being I was program manager for the Department 


of Energy at the time. And all of the -- all ­

- all but the last couple of buildings of the ­

- of the plutonium buildings had to meet final 


-- a final survey criteria. And so the last 


couple of buildings that were brought down were 


basically hot. They were -- they were deconned 


down to as low as they could but -- where they 


could -- where they could get to the 


contamination but they did have contamination 


associated, but it was a very controlled 


condition where the -- where there was a lot of 


air monitoring going on with the state EPA and 


everybody looking over their shoulders. And --


And under controlled conditions and very slow 


takedown for the most part there with the 


equipment to track -- eliminate -- and using a 


lot of water with the spray and so forth. 

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DR. MAURO: In the movie we did see the spray 


but I have to say that I also did see 


notwithstanding the spray -- 


 DR. BISTLINE: There was dust. There was dust 


from time to time. 


 DR. MAURO: And the continuous air monitors, 


you’re saying, were strategically placed? 


 DR. BISTLINE: There were high vols (ph) and 


low vols. 


 DR. MAURO: High vols and low -- and that data 


-- that data are available? 


 DR. BISTLINE: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So I guess my -- my point is, you 


know, we can hypothesize for the rest of the 


afternoon but if we have this data and we can 


compare how many people were monitored bioassay 


versus how many people were on site, that would 


give us at least a sense of what is -- is most 


of the population because they’re not going to 


rely -- from what I hear you’re not going to 


rely on air monitoring. You’re going to rely 


on bioassay. 


 DR. ULSH: And that is true. We will rely on 


bioassay. But also keep in mind, John, the 


situation that you’re describing with, you 

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know, a building coming down, maybe some amount 


of plume of contaminated dust, that’s 


environmental dust. That’s exactly -- I mean 


that would be registered on our environmental 


list. That would be assuming we’re doing 


environmental measuring. 


 DR. NETON: Right. But you’ve got to remember 


if you’ve got a population of exposed workers 


like Mark’s suggesting, if 50 percent of the 


people are all non-detectible who were 


monitored, they’re presumably breathing the 


same air as the general people walking around 


if not higher. You’ve got a bounding situation 


there. I’m not saying we’d assign that but, 


you know, if we look at --


 MR. GRIFFON: If we look on the other hand it 


turns out it’s like ten percent then -- then 


you -- then I might have some more questions. 


 DR. NETON: Right. But then -- then it’s a 


matter of what -- what dose do you assign as 


opposed to can you assign anything, in my mind. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Were there any specific studies 


done during the takedown of the building to 


look at dust suppression technique and 


determine whether or not it was viable in that 

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set of circumstances? Because we have that as 


well. 


 DR. BISTLINE: The state health department was 


keeping a very close tab on that. They --


They were requiring sampling -- strategically 


located sampling at all times. 


MR. ELLIOTT: And the dust suppression 


techniques, applying water being instrumental 


for this -- for asbestos but also for RAD. 


 DR. BISTLINE: No, no. Asbestos was pretty 


much cleaned up at the time. Right, it was RAD 


that they were concerned about. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: I’d like to point out that the 


buildings that did come down during ’76 was the 


fire building with the high-fired oxides in 


particular with the false ceiling in that. 


And, you know, that surprised a lot of people 


because that was one of our most contaminated 


facilities. And so -- you know, and I read the 


reports, low risk for the population and work 


force and everybody bought off on it, you know. 


But -- But I will tell you that the great 


concern to my members just due to the nature of 


the building and the history and what was 


really still inside of it. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: I think that’s in our next course 


of action is to look at the bioassay data for 


those inventories and it can give us a general 


sense of how many workers per year were on site 


for D&D for that time period. I think that 


would be helpful to come down on assessment. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: No, I -- I think -- I think 


the question was proportioned bioassay that the 


-- I think the secondary issue is whether the ­

- I think that dust as an issue would be later. 


That might be something to look at. Right now 


I think that what we’re hearing is that it 


sounds like everything was centralized. I’ll 


send you the Defense Board reports but again 


that was the early period before Kaiser came on 


board so that was the last part. But that kind 


of again is a -- could be interpreted a number 


of different ways. I think --


 MR. GRIFFON: And I'm not sure how minor of a 


job it is to get a sense for how many people 


were on site for each year either because with 


all these subs it might not be an easy number 


to get to. And I think it’s a very important 


number, especially with some of the things that 


Tony’s raised. You know, my concern would -- 

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would also be if you, you know -- I’ve -- I’ve 


seen situations where CA’s are defined and then 


just the situation you described, you know. 


You can say, okay, it looks -- it looks pretty 


reasonable here. We don’t require it for this 


area. And then they start hammering into the 


cement floor. Well, nobody knows because 


nobody’s looking for it but you’ve got 


contamination being spread. So we hope that’s 


not the situation but, you know, I think that’s 


something we want to be looking for so we need 


a pretty good sense of how many workers were on 


site. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Absolutely. It’s like when we 


found all the beryllium in the lockers in 444 


locker room ten years later after we baselined 


that locker room. Okay, we did a complete 


sampling of the locker room and everything was 


down below limits once we discovered beryllium 


was a respiratory hazard. And then when we -- 


when we went into the D&D, the actual 


disassembly, we spread beryllium again because 


it was stuck in the cracks, you know, in -- in 


large quantities. I mean, Bob, you remember 


that. 

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 MR. FITZGERALD: I guess one last question. 


You mentioned that other than rude intakes 


there wasn’t anything that was major in the way 


of -- of I guess half-cell uptakes in the late 


’90s? Is that -- Is that a fair 


characterization? 


 MR. POTTER: Yes. 


MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Short answer. 


 DR. BISTLINE: Hey, Gene, wasn’t it about -- 


about the time Kaiser-Hill came in that -- that 


the on-site bioassay lab really kind of closed 


-- was closed down and you went to contracting? 


Or was it a little earlier than that? 


 MR. POTTER: Let me see. In ’95 they had 


started to -- I -- let’s see, ’94/’95 they had 


already let some off-site bioassay contracts. 


And the on-site lab lasted until early ’97 I 


believe. 


 DR. BISTLINE: Okay. That was kind of my 


recollection, too, and so all the bioassay was 


being routed through the on-site laboratory 


while it was in existence. I know that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And after ’97 you had -- you had 


subcontracted bioassay labs? 

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 DR. BISTLINE: Yeah. But it was still going 


through the system. 


 MR. POTTER: Right. There was an analytical 


services group set up when Kaiser-Hill came in, 


and when the on-site lab closed there still was 


a site receiving station and a site database 


that handled the comings and goings of bioassay 


samples and the data packages. 


MR. LITTLE: This is Craig Little. I want to 


hearken back a minute or two to the talk about 


termination bioassay. I found a form here 


that’s dated 2005, Rocky Flats Radio Watch for 


(unintelligible) Processing Form. And I want 


to read you a pertinent part. Termination 


bioassay monitoring is required. When a 


current or former participant in the bioassay 


program terminates employment or concludes work 


involving the potential for internal exposure. 


I understand this requirement and either am 


exempt since I have never worked as a RAD 


worker, two, have not entered a CA, HCA or ARA 


since the date of my last bioassay. I 


acknowledge receipt of termination bioassay 


kits and sampler request kits. I realize that 


failure to submit the requested samples 

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constitute refusal on my part to participate in 


terminated bioassay program or have elected to 


waive the bioassay monitoring offered by 


internal survey. And it’s signed by the 


outgoing employee, checked and signed by the 


outgoing employee. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Just for the record, on December 


31st when I was laid off, there was no bioassay 


program. There was no lung counting program in 


existence and I had to get special exception to 


get beryllium testing at National Jewish, just 


for the record. 


MR. LITTLE: Not as of August -- as of August 


’05 it was. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Okay, yeah. But December 31st , 


2005, none of this was available to me or -- or 


my officer. So I just want to let you know 


that. And of course, I was the last guy to 


leave but --


 DR. NETON: You turned the lights out, right? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Anything else on D&D? I 


think we want to move on to data reliability 


before it gets too late. 


 DR. ULSH: Do you want take a comfort break 


first? 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, let’s take a -- let’s take 


five/ten minutes. I guess in ten minutes 


anyway, so ten minutes. 


(Whereupon, a brief recess was held from 3:05 


p.m. to 3:20 p.m.) 


DR. WADE: Okay, let’s get back to business. 


One last long pull. 


DATA RELIABILITY


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. We’re on our last -- 


the good news, on our last agenda item. The 


bad news, it may be one of the lengthier ones 


although I think some of this stuff it’s 


ongoing work so I'm not sure how long this will 


take. Data reliability, the topic. And maybe 


to start off, Brant, I -- I sort of in my mind 


anyway I’ve grouped this into two separate 


things. One is the data reliability issues 


where we’ve asked you to look at the hard copy 


records versus the electronic records. And --


And the other subset is the specific case 


issues which sort of led to all these -- the 


safety concern logs, the other logbooks, et 


cetera. So maybe we can start off with just 


summarizing the database question. And I think 


what’s happened since the last meeting that 

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we’ve had is you -- you -- if I can -- I'm not 


sure I can do this justice but I think you -- 


you searched some of the claimants, some of the 


NIOSH claimants and you went into their hard 


copy records and you did a comparison versus 


external database -- external dosimetry records 


and internal? 


 DR. ULSH: I think that is correct. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And did you look at any other -- 


that was -- and then you had a breakdown of 


what might have been -- I guess my question, 


and I -- I’ve had a crack at this, but what was 


raw data records versus what was sort of HIS 20 


printouts or -- or whatever? 


 DR. ULSH: Well, the thing that we were always 


comparing against is HIS 20, but the question 


is what were we comparing to HIS 20. And 


during the earlier years those raw records for 


lack of a better term would have been the what 


do you -- what do you call it, the beta gamma 


worksheets? 


 MR. LITTLE: Yeah. The, yeah, beta gamma 


worksheets. I can look at -- I can pull one up 


and look at it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, beta gamma worksheets and 

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what -- what -- when you say early years, what 


years would that mean? 


 MR. LITTLE: ’66 to ’69 or ’65 to ’69. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. After that we had some 


printouts -- was it health physics database or 


was it RHRS? 


 MR. LITTLE: RHRS.
 

DR. ULSH: It was RHRS which were I believe the 


dose of record at the time. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And they would do these printouts 


though, right? I mean earlier? 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, RHRS is the earlier database 


and those were the doses of record at the time. 


We compared those to HIS 20 as well for those 


later years. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And that would range from ’70 


‘til -- do you have any sense or -- 


 MR. LITTLE: Well, I don’t -- maybe ’75 or ’76 


it seems. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. ’70 to ’75 or 6, something 


like that? 


 MR. LITTLE: In that ballpark, and I can -- I 


can check that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Good enough. I just want to get 


a sense. And then what came next? The HDSL or 

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what? 


 DR. ULSH: Health Physics Database, right? 


HPDB? 


 MR. GRIFFON: HPDB. 


 DR. ULSH: Those acronyms. Is that the next 


database? 


 MR. LITTLE: Jim maybe --


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, Jim Langsted, are you on the 


line? 


 MR. LANGSTED: Yes, I am. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. So can you give us the 


breakdown in terms of what was the dose of 


record over the years? It started out up to 


maybe 1970 was the written records, right? And 


then after that came RHRS. 


 MR. LANGSTED: No, starting back at the 


beginning was written record up to about 1976. 


Then came the health physics database. 


 DR. ULSH: Oh, okay. 


 MR. LANGSTED: And then after that was the RHRS 


and then the HIS 20. 


 MR. FALK: Well, the health science was in 


there. 


MR. LANGSTED: And Roger points out there was a 


health sciences database in there, too. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Ah, I thought I saw HSDS, 


something like that. All right. Thank you. 


DR. ULSH: So there were a number of iterations 


of electronic databases that preceded HIS 20. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And you’re -- you’re carefully 


using the term the -- the dose of record? 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, I mean --


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean is there any -- we went 


through this with Y-12. Did -- Was there an 


acceptance from DOE that -- that database 


records would be the “dose of record” or -- 


 DR. ULSH: Jim, do you have any answer to that? 


 MR. LANGSTED: I -- I personally do not recall 


any DOE buyoff on specifically what was the 


dose of record. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. So I was being fast and loose 


with my term there, Mark. You raised I think 


this issue at the Denver Board meeting but for 


some of the later years when we were comparing 


one of the predecessors of HIS 20 to HIS 20 you 


-- you mentioned that you would like to see 


perhaps what preceded, you know the hard copy 


that -- that came before. And I think what 


we’ve done is that we’ve pulled some of the 


worksheets for the later years and we’re in the 

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midst of comparing that to HIS 20 now in 


response to your concern. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That was my question really, was, 


you know, I wouldn’t be surprised if you had a 


pretty good match between database printouts 


and the archived database. As a matter of fact 


I would hope it would pretty well be 100 


percent. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, yeah. I mean, well --


 MR. GRIFFON: It may not -- it may not be 


perfect either but -- 


 DR. ULSH: Right. When you migrate from 


database to database that could be. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Right. 


 DR. ULSH: So that would be about -- part of 


the way but --


 MR. GRIFFON: More important would be to step 


back. 


 DR. ULSH: Right. Yeah. So I think we’re 


doing that now. We’ve located some of these 


beta gamma sheets, TLD worksheets for some of 


the later years and we’re in the midst of 


comparing that to HIS 20 now to address your 


concern. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And the same then on the bioassay 

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side of this I guess, the same kind of 


question. 


 MR. LITTLE: You’ve done some bioassay -- I’m 


trying to pull that up to refresh my memory. 


 DR. ULSH: And there we would have compared the 


cards, the bioassay cards in the earlier years 


up to what year? 


 MR. LITTLE: Well, I’ve got some -- I’ve got a 


mix up to ’84. It may be higher than that from 


-- from -- I’ve got them as far back as ’62 


comes fine up to ’89. Now, those -- there are 


no cards for ’89, under HSDB compared to HIS 


20. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


MR. LITTLE: But for the -- for up to like 1970 


there would have been cards. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So in the claimants’ files up to 


’70 or so, you’d have cards in there? 


 MR. LITTLE: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And then after that it would be 


database, iterations of a different database. 


Okay. And are you doing any -- same question 


as before. Are you going back with that? Are 


you attempting to go back the same way as Brant 


just described for bioassay records as -- 

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 MR. LITTLE: Well, we really -- that’s what 


we’ve really done essentially. We’ve done it 


for -- because the -- the -- the beta gamma 


worksheets only go up to 1970 and so we didn’t 


go beyond that with those. And we haven’t yet 


started looking at the -- we’re just starting 


to look at the TLD worksheets. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 MR. LITTLE: It brings us into the more modern 


era on the external side. The internal side 


we’ve got the data that -- we’ve got cards up 


to 1970 and then HSDB to compare with HIS 20 


after that. 


 DR. ULSH: But is there anything that precedes 


HSDB in like a written record that would have 


been prepared before it was entered into HSDB? 


I don't know the answer to that. 


 MR. LITTLE: I don't know the answer to that 


either. 


 DR. ULSH: Roger, are you on line? 


MR. FALK: I am trying not to be. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That’s an honest answer. 


 DR. ULSH: Do you know the status of whether or 


not there would have been any handwritten 


records or how late in time you might find 

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handwritten records? 


 MR. FALK: For -- For what? 


 DR. ULSH: For bioassay. 


 MR. LITTLE: Bioassay. 


 MR. FALK: Bioassay? There are probably urine 


log books but then those were actually directly 


entered into the health sciences database but 


there are -- there are probably those which are 


archived at the Federal Center. 


 DR. ULSH: So we’re in the same logbook mode 


which you’re going to talk about a little bit 


later. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: If there is anything that precedes 


the electronic data in a logbook. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And that leads me to my last 


question on this topic. It’s in the site 


profile. I actually went back before this 


meeting and looked at the site profile again. 


It’s always good to reflect back. And the 


second -- I think it’s the second attachment or 


the first attachment in the internal dose 


section, and that’s the bioassay one -- there’s 


an in vivo and bioassay one. Somewhere in 


there, I even think it was in the 

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acknowledgement at the end where the author 


acknowledges certain people for -- for 


identifying or pulling logbooks, urine logbooks 


on which a lot of this analysis of the MDA to 


be conducted. And my sense earlier was that we 


didn’t have logbooks. Now, maybe they were all 


gone to this Federal Center, you know. Maybe 


they’re archived now or whatever but it seems 


like logbooks exist and that would be -- that’s 


-- when we started this whole discussion we 


said if you have any urinalysis logbooks to 


compare raw records that would be the primary ­

-


 DR. ULSH: Roger, do you still have those 


logbooks in your possession or are they all at 


the --


 MR. FALK: No, it turned out that I was able to 


find all but up to 1971. And those all have 


been returned back to the -- back to the 


Federal Center records storage system. 


 DR. ULSH: So, Mark, I think I can -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, it’s just -- it’s just -- 


prior to this I understood that they -- you had 


looked and weren’t able to locate anything but 


now it seems that they -- they exist so -- 

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 DR. ULSH: Well, you might be confusing 


different kinds of logbooks. We’ve got the 


urinalysis logbooks that Roger’s talking about. 


There’s the foreman’s logbooks. There’s the 


contamination control logbooks. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I don’t -- I don't think 


I’m confusing logbooks but at any rate it’s -- 


I didn’t notice this in the site profile before 


either so this is the reference I’m going from 


now. I think it would be worthwhile to at 


least sample those logbooks if we can. Okay. 


So again, not, as Jim and -- Jim and I have 


been down this road before, you know. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 


MR. GRIFFON: We’re certainly not looking for 


any kind of -- all of the logbooks but the -- 


MR. FALK: But now, those -- those -- those are 


not always logbooks. They are the data log. 


Normally I found them in sheets which were in 


labeled folders but they are -- are -- but they 


are the data logs. 


 DR. ULSH: So Roger, let me ask you. If we 


were to go back and pull some sheets or 


logbooks, you know, some representative samples 


across the years, and then could -- could pull 

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the results out of HIS 20 just to balance them 


against each other, how hard of a task would 


that be? I mean is that a manageable thing to 


do? 


 MR. FALK: Well, it -- it is -- it is difficult 


to find people specific because they are in the 


sequence of the -- of the sample number. They 


are not organized by person. But it’s probably 


doable but it’s going to take time. 


 DR. ULSH: So they don’t have identifiers that 


would let you pull a result out of HIS 20; is 


that what you’re saying? 


 MR. FALK: They will likely have the person’s 


name and also the Rocky Flats employee number. 


 MR. LITTLE: They’re going to be sequential or 


something and so finding --


 DR. ULSH: Well, we can start with the -- the ­

- the worksheets or the logbooks -- 


DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- start there. 


 DR. NETON: Well, you’re not really talking 


about finding -- finding claimants here. 


You’re just talking about matching up. 


 DR. ULSH: Right. 


 MR. LITTLE: Right. 

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 DR. NETON: Theoretically if it’s in the 


logbook it should be in the database so you 


don’t really have to identify -- 


 DR. ULSH: We can put that down as an action 


item, Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Anything else on the database 


question? I think that was something that I 


was probably (unintelligible). All right. 


 SAFETY CONCERNS
 

I’m going to move on to the other part of the 


data reliability question which is sort of this 


-- this path that we’ve gone down on the 


specific issues raised, some from the petition 


itself and some from SC&A. And maybe Joe has 


indicated, Brant, he’d like you to maybe start 


with an overview of where things stand and -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, just from the last -- 


last conference call we had here in Cincinnati, 


what we want to do is simplify the -- the -- I 


wouldn’t call it white paper but the report 


that we prepared before the Denver meeting 


which was about 18 pages of review on the issue 


to a briefer six or seven page just, you know, 


roadmap of what needed to be accomplished, and 


we did that. We circulated that. Brant took a 

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look at it and I think we’re on the same page 


on that. And that’s the piece that we’re using 


for essentially the status of this thing and 


what closure would mean. And why don’t you go 


ahead? 


 DR. ULSH: So this is the -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Safety concerns. 


 DR. ULSH: Is that this one? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: That -- Right. 


 DR. ULSH: This is the official? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: No, that’s the -- that’s the 


status report from Kathy, basically. She can’t 


be here; she can’t be on the phone so that’s 


kind of her status. 


 DR. ULSH: There were a couple of things in the 


May 19th, 2006 document that Joe sent over I 


guess it was last week. And like Joe said, 


it’s a distillation of the previous document. 


And it boils down to there are a couple of 


things that SC&A is proposing that we look at. 


One is a group of specific safety concerns and 


I’m prepared to talk about those today. 
I 


should mention that the -- the copy of the 


safety concerns has been posted on the O-drive 


in the Rocky Flats folder in the usual place. 

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So you see on table 1 here from SC&A’s document 


there are two, three, four, five -- seven -- 


seven specific safety concerns. I’m going to 


go through those briefly today because of the 


hour, and the full text of those safety 


concerns is at the O-drive. I also have hard 


copies here if anyone wants to pick one up. 


And then the second part is various logbooks, 


the second group of documents. We’re not as 


far along on that. We’ve located the logbooks, 


some of them. We’ve looked at samples of them. 


Craig, do you want to characterize what we’ve 


seen so far? 


 MR. LITTLE: I looked at some. I can’t say I 


did a comprehensive look at any single one but 


I pulled three or four or five contamination 


control logbooks and foreman’s logbooks and 


looked at them. I think Kathy had concluded 


that the foreman’s logbooks weren’t of much 


value in terms of trying to describe incidents 


and things like that. Most of the information 


in those are things like so and so took a day 


off; his wife’s going to have a baby or 


somebody has taken vacation. And I’m not 


saying that’s exclusively the way it is but 

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there is that kind of information. It’s more 


people movement kind of stuff. The 


contamination control logbooks range everything 


from the cafeteria read 20 DPM and that’s all. 


There are a couple things like that on the page 


and that’s essentially it to leaking -- leaking 


pipe or brought in supplies, monthly supplies 


or took swipes, things of that -- you know, 


contaminate control sorts of things. And very 


occasionally there are names in those logbooks 


where it would mention a worker by name. And 


we went into that with there was still five 


workers that -- I think they were five 


petitioners that Kathy had brought up by name 


and we actually went into one of the logbooks 


from the period of time suggested and tried to 


find this guy’s name. And we didn’t get 


through the entire logbook but we found his 


name one time and it had nothing to do with 


anything having to do with an exposure rate or 


anything of that nature. Not to say that 


there’s not information available but it’s 


going to be a needle in the haystack time 


trying to find anything that’s applicable to 


somebody’s dose or dosimetry and I -- I’m not 

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at all convinced that we’re going to find any 


useful information, and I think the return on 


effort is going to be very small. Now, there 


is a collection of about 20 logbooks from the 


group that Kathy selected that have been put on 


CD and I think they were sent out to her way 


last week. And I have a copy of that also and 


I haven’t even cracked the document yet. I 


just haven’t had time to go through it. But we 


will be working. Now, the problem with all of 


these, of course, is that they’re all 


facsimiles; that is PDF or handwritten 


documents so they’re not searchable documents. 


And it would be as tedious as going through a 


logbook. Not quite as tedious as going through 


a logbook turning the pages but it’s going to ­

- it’s going to -- it’ll be good insomniac type 


work. 


 MR. LANGSTED: This is Jim Langsted. I have 


looked through the first two of those 771 


building radiation monitoring form and 


logbooks. 


 MR. LITTLE: Good. 


 MR. LANGSTED: And very similar to what Craig 


said, a lot of personnel or, you know, 

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radiation monitor vacation schedule, that sort 


of thing. Occasionally there’s a mention that 


there was a leak and this particular glove box 


was cleaned up on night shift. But very seldom 


if any names and no quantitative data related 


to that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And these logbooks you said they 


were sent out on CD. Can they be put on the O-


drive? 


 MR. DEMAIORI: I’ve got a question. Did you 


pull the skin count logbooks out of the decon 


rooms? 


 MR. LITTLE: No, the only ones that I’ve looked 


at really are the ones that Kathy had 


requested, and I didn’t look at all of those. 


There are --


 MR. DEMAIORI: Because I believe there was -- 


 MR. LITTLE: -- 22 boxes of those. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Yeah, I believe that was part of 


the request was all the decon logbooks that 


would give you actual readings of skin 


contaminations and incidents of individuals. 


At Rocky Flats we had the three-wash rule, two-


wash rule where -- where you can decontaminate 


in the decon room, you know, until the skin 

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turned red or until it was decontaminated, so 


that would provide a lot of additional 


information that -- that would never get to 


body count or bioassay sampling. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Would those have individual 


names? 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Absolutely. Name, numbers, 


everything. When I removed glove box 134 east 


which was actually where the fire was in 777 


everything we touched, pulled a screw off the 


wall, it would be 250/300 d per rem -- 1,000 d 


per rem. So my crew got skin cons every day 


because they refused to wear surgeon’s gloves. 


Because prior to the RAD Con Manual in 1989 


sheet metal workers were kind of hard-headed. 


They were supposed to be wearing gloves but 


every time you turned around a glove would rip 


and they’d still work. So we were in the decon 


room daily; so it would show the releases, 


things of that nature. The decon logbooks are 


a great source, and I believe that Kathy had 


asked for those also. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, there’s about ten of 


them listed here on the second page of 


attachment one. 

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202

 MR. DEMAIORI: I wouldn’t bite into the 


foreman’s logs too much because that’s exactly 


what it is is the management of personnel. So 


there’s more in the contamination control 


logbooks which were negotiated to actually in 


the early ‘90s for -- for job classification. 


And there’s a reason we negotiated them, 


because we were having a lot of unreported 


contamination incidents. So we actually 


negotiated it as a full-time job for the OCP’s. 


DR. ULSH: Okay. We’ll -- We’ll focus on 


those from the ones that you raise. 


 MR. LITTLE: Yeah, they’re all still sitting 


there waiting to be scanned, yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: So we need to give those priority. 


Okay. The first set of documents that SC&A 


listed in their -- their write-up were safety 


concerns and I sent around a handout. We’ve 


looked at all the safety concerns listed in 


this table and I’d like to walk through and 


just kind of summarize what they turned out to 


be and our evaluation of them. Again, I have 


hard copies of the whole thing in a box right 


over here. Okay. The first one is 71-4 and 


the concern that was expressed was that an 

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employee was concerned that his film badge 


results for December 1970 did not show the high 


levels of neutron exposure which according to 


instrument readings and film badge results of 


other monitor on the same special job should 


have been expected. Okay. The resolution on 


this was the supervisor talked about the 


inherent limitations of neutron film dosimetry 


and also the plans to replace neutron films 


with TLD -- TLD’s. If you recall, 1970 was 


right around the time of the transition from 


film badges to TLD’s and the employee -- 


there’s a checkbox on these forms, at least 


back in ’71 and up into the ‘80s where the 


employee can check off whether he is or is not 


satisfied with the results of his discussion 


with the supervisor and he checked that he was 


satisfied. But this is one instance of an 


issue that seems to keep coming up. I mean we 


keep hearing this, that, you know, I worked on 


a job or I worked in a -- in a radiation area 


or a high radiation area and my badge came back 


low or zero. So I’d like to maybe just talk 


about this in a more generic sense. I’d like 


to paint a scenario for you just to kind of 

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give you a feel for this. If all of us were on 


a radiation job today, right now in this room, 


our job descriptions would all be the same. In 


other words, you know, so all of the job 


descriptions would be the same. We’re sitting 


here at the table. For those of you who are 


dialing in, we’re sitting at a long table, oh, 


I would guess 20-25 feet long. I’m terrible at 


estimating distances but let’s say it’s that. 


And so if you could imagine, I’m sitting at one 


end of the table and let’s say that I’m a 


radioactive source. I’m in the middle of the 


room; I’m the radioactive source and I’m at one 


end of the table. So if you look at the dose 


rate that Craig Little is getting, he’s sitting 


right here to my left about one foot away, 


whatever his dose rate is. And then I look 


down the table and I see -- I’ll pick on one of 


my own people on that -- Larry Elliott. He’s 


sitting at the far end of the table, maybe 20 


feet away. Simply based on distance alone, 


Larry’s dose rate would be if he’s about 20 


feet away a factor of 400 different from Craig 


Little’s dose rate. So you certainly would not 


expect everyone in this room, same job 

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description working on the same job to have the 


same dose rate. That’s just based on distance 


alone. That’s not even taking into account the 


other factors that are important -- shielding. 


There happens to be not much between me and 


Larry except this table, but there could be a 


concrete wall, a toolbox holding the tools, who 


knows what. So there’s also shielding to 


consider. There was a gentleman in here 


earlier that brought in supplies, that brought 


in soda. Focus that in. He worked in a 


radiation area if this room was a radiation 


area – in this scenario -- and then he left. 


So the time is important. Time, distance and 


shielding. This -- This is fundamental in 


calculating external dosimetry in health 


physics. So I think that employee -- sometimes 


workers think that, you know, all the results 


should be the same on a -- on a job and that’s 


simply not accurate if you consider just the 


fact just in this limited scenario the 


difference in dose rates between someone who 


works close to the source versus someone who’s 


far away. So I don't think that necessarily 


just the fact that not everyone on a job got 

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the same dose rate constitutes a data integrity 


issue. So that I think is our evaluation of 


the first safety concern. So I’ll open it up 


for discussion if anyone wants to talk about 


that. 


MR. DEMAIORI: Well, I -- I’d like to talk 


about the single source theory as far as 


sitting at the table with the hydrochlorination 


lines above me and not you and yet your dose 


rate is higher than mine. And so this is where 


these questions come in. 


 DR. ULSH: Right. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Right. One of the individuals 


in the petition who did the physical loading of 


the stacker retriever in 371 with over 14 tons 


-- I’m not talking nanocuries -- we’re talking 


tons of weapons-grade plutonium. That IO 


station is very small. You can only get two or 


three people in it. So what was articulated at 


the last meeting was well, the RAD tech was 


real wiley and he was hiding outside. No way. 


He had to be inside that small little room, the 


IO station that we called it, that gave him 


access to the glove box to put the plutonium in 


through the downdraft table. He had to be an 

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active member for contamination control 


purposes, not to let the contamination off the 


downdraft table and out of the glove box. Now, 


this person did the job for 120 days. We were 


rotating the crews who were physically putting 


the material in the glove box every five days 


and we were getting them to sign exceptions 


because as Mr. Potter pointed out we had -- we 


lowered our administrative limits so low by the 


time we got to D&D that we could no longer do 


production type activities. I mean at Rocky 


Flats we’ve always tried to be half of what the 


standards were. So -- So the data integrity 


question is how do you tell this RCT who’s 


shoulder to shoulder with the people loading 


the plutonium that -- that his exposure is so 


much less? And granted there’s technique. You 


try to use the person in front of you as a 


shield. Distance is your best friend, period. 


There’s no doubt about that. But it’s 


(unintelligible) to be that far off and then to 


be riddled with zeros and told that you didn’t 


turn in your dosimeter. Okay. Working a hot 


job that’s very monitored, okay, that is -- 


that -- that everybody’s paying attention to. 

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I mean we’re rotating crews so it’s not 


routine. For that to be allowed, that’s not 


possible. That’s not possible. There’d have 


been disciplinary action if he didn’t turn in 


his dosimeter on that type of a job. And yet 


there wasn’t. There were zeros. Okay. 


 DR. ULSH: Certainly the analogy is -- I mean 


there’s going to be situations where the source 


isn’t localized to what, you know, to where my 


body is. It could be spread all around the 


room. There you would expect a different 


pattern. Or certainly there are situations 


like you described, Tony, where people are 


working side by side, maybe more shielding 


where you might expect something different. 


What I’m saying is in the generic sense, just 


based on the information that was in this 


safety concern, there’s no detail here in this 


particular safety concern that would make me 


say there is no possible logical explanation 


for this. I mean certainly on some jobs you 


would expect exactly the result that -- that I 


described, that factors could vary by several 


orders. In fact dose rates that were 


experienced by different workers on that job 

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could vary by several orders of magnitude. 


There might be other situations like you 


described where you might not expect that. And 


also you -- you would expect that as people 


move around that might tend to even out dose 


rates a little bit. What I’m saying is you 


can’t just in the generic sense look at the -- 


the people who worked on a particular job and 


expect necessarily that all those dose rates 


would be the same. And that was the issue 


that’s brought up in this particular safety 


concern. 


 MR. GIBSON: Brant, this is Mike Gibson. And 


with no disrespect at all -- I mean this Board 


is supposed to be made up of scientists, 


doctors, and those that have been out in the 


labor field. And I -- I totally agree with 


you. There are some times that there are work 


crews that are in an area of you’re tearing out 


a ballroom and it’s -- there’s going to be a 


magnitude of different doses. More times -- as 


many times as not you’re going to send a crew 


as far as maintenance and decon, of an 


electrician, a pipe fitter, a mechanic and a 


decon worker and they’re going to be going into 

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a room similar to probably the size that Tony 


was talking about and you’re going to be 


working on a glove box that’s maybe four foot 


by eight foot and you’re all going to be right 


in there with your hands in the thing so, you 


know, I understand what you’re saying and in 


some cases that’s logical. And if -- if there 


was no details in this report maybe we should 


look further for further details. But there 


are certainly situations as many times as not 


where people worked shoulder to shoulder. 


 DR. ULSH: Absolutely I’ll grant that, Mike. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Can you -- can you maybe -- I 


didn’t look at the safety evaluation report 


here but it says the supervisor noted the 


inherent limitations of neutron film dosimetry 


and plans to replace film dosimetry with TLD’s. 


What exactly did he note there or what -- See, 


it almost seems like he’s acknowledging that 


there might be some reason for the difference 


there. 


 DR. ULSH: The supervisor -- Okay. The --


The concern expressed by the employee I’ve 


already pretty much read verbatim. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

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 DR. ULSH: The supervisor’s answer was inherent 


inaccuracy of neutron film dosimetry is known 


by health physics. However it was the best 


system known. Recent research and development 


of TLD crystals for neutron dosimetry has 


proven much more accurate. Consequently 


process operators in 771 have been issued 


neutron TLD’s since January 1, 1971. The 


remainder of 771 people and the plant will be 


issued neutron TLD systems as soon as possible. 


Thank you for you concern. Concerns often lead 


to agreements. I didn’t find his response 


particularly informative to be honest with you. 


It’s pretty generic. But all I can tell you is 


for this one particular safety concern -- 


usually there’s a package. There’s this 


particular form and some other documentation 


behind it. But for this particular one this is 


all that we were able to locate on this. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And this doesn’t tell you whether 


other employees were involved when he says 


others? 


 DR. ULSH: It does not. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It doesn’t so you couldn’t 


crosswalk any of this. 

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 DR. ULSH: No, it doesn’t tell us. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Well, I’d like to point out that 


-- that the employee’s saying I’m satisfied 


with your answer. It is no more than that. 


Please try to read no more into that. 


 DR. ULSH: No, absolutely not. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: The employer has said, hey, 


look, this is the system we got. We got a 


better one coming. Hey, I mean how much are 


you going to beat the dog so to speak, okay? 


 DR. ULSH: If it were me I might not have 


checked it if that was the only thing that I’d 


gotten. But I’m -- I’m just speaking in a -- 


in a general sense here. This is all we’ve got 


for this particular safety concern. Do you 


want to move on to the next one? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, might as well. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. The next one is 86-13 -- 86­

13. The concern expressed was that the worker 


was concerned about only receiving quarterly 


dosimetry badge results twice during 1985. 


Worker felt that the only reason for this was 


that they, the health physics staff, were short 


of help. In terms of the formal resolution for 


this, the matter was referred to the Joint 

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Company/Union Safety Committee. Well, I talked 


to Tony over the break just to get a feel for 


what -- what the process was here. And Tony 


told me about some of the improvements that he 


made when he took over in around 2000 but back 


in 1986 as I understand it -- and Tony, please 


jump in and elaborate if I don’t get it quite 


right -- the worker would file a concern and 


then if he checked on this particular form if 


he was not satisfied with the supervisor’s 


response then the matter would -- would be 


referred to the Joint Company/Union Safety 


Committee. So for this particular safety 


concern the worker was not satisfied with the 


supervisor response so this was taken up by the 


-- the Joint Company/Union Safety Committee. 


And the resolution was that according to a -- a 


letter that was sent from the Committee to the 


worker -- this is some -- a quote from it. The 


badge was in fact picked up three of the four 


quarters in 1985. Since we’re in open session 


I won’t say the name. Mr. X explained that due 


to their manpower shortage they selected the 


lowest risk groups using historical data and 


bypassed the badge pickup for the third 

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quarter. The choice was this over running late 


on the badge readings for the highest risk 


groups, those needing badge readings every 


other week. The health physics was unwilling 


to compromise the safety of the latter group 


for the sake of the lower risk groups which 


historically could go to a semiannual reading 


without jeopardizing safety. In the quarterly 


group some of the figures given to us at the 


meeting were that only two or three of the 


whole group went over -- went over 500 millirem 


for 1985. Even those going over were just 


barely over. The plant objective currently is 


to keep everyone under 2,500 millirem. 


National standards allow for 5,000 millirem per 


year. So this appears to be a case where a 


badge exchange was -- was missed due to a 


shortage in health physics staff. And as a 


result the worker who was on quarterly badge 


exchange wore his badge for an extra quarter. 


Now, there’s no indication here that the worker 


was in fact unmonitored; simply that he wore 


his badge for an extra quarter. So again our 


evaluation is that this is not necessarily a 


data integrity issue because he was in fact 

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monitored. Any discussion on that one? 


 MR. GRIFFON: I guess the -- the concern sort 


of agrees with the response, doesn’t it? The 


worker felt the only reason for this was that 


there was a shortage of help. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, the worker --


 MR. GRIFFON: And that’s sort of confirmed. 


 DR. ULSH: That is confirmed, yes. That --


The reason that they skipped that badge 


exchange for the lower risk workers was that 


they were -- they had a manpower shortage. But 


I think that the worker was concerned about 


only receiving the quarterly dosimetry badge 


results twice during ’85. You can make an 


assumption, and this is only an assumption, 


that the worker felt he might not have been 


monitored. And that does not appear to be the 


case. All right. Any other discussion? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Would you -- Do you -- You have 


this individual’s name. Did you look at the 


database and look at the doses he received by 


any chance? 


 DR. ULSH: No. No.


 MR. GRIFFON: Just out of curiosity. 


 DR. ULSH: Didn’t do that, Mark, because the 

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evaluation that we performed indicated that, 


you know, this is the situation so even if we 


looked at it and the readings were zero we 


would assume (unintelligible) data integrity 


issue. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Next one was 87-206. This 


concern dealt with personnel -- “personnel not 


receiving current dosimetry badge readings, 


usually signed off by the employee”. In terms 


of the resolution of this, this one was also 


referred to the Joint Company/Union Safety 


Committee and the Committee sent a letter to 


the workers stating that this is a violation of 


the HSE Manual 18.03 and it is a DOE 


requirement. This should not have been allowed 


to happen and must be corrected immediately. 


Employees have a right per DOE to receive this 


information. I contacted -- the name is given 


here -- the manager of radiation safety who 


assured me that this would be corrected 


immediately and the Joint Company/Union Safety 


Committee now considers this concern closed. 


So what this appears to relate to is that the 


workers who were required to sign off on their 

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dosimetry results in fact didn’t get a copy of 


the dosimetry results. So -- And that’s 


certainly a -- that’s certainly a concern, a 


valid concern and the resolution reflects that. 


Corrective action was initiated and there’s no 


indication here that the workers were in fact 


unmonitored, only that their results weren’t 


reported to them in a timely manner. So again 


we contend that this is not -- while it is 


certainly a valid concern it’s not a data 


integrity issue in terms of the SEC. Okay. 


The next one, 89-037. The concern was that the 


employee stated that he did not receive a 


bioassay for an extended period of time and he 


did not have a dosimetry badge change for one 


year, approximately December of ’87 to December 


of ’88. And according to the immediate 


supervisor’s response the lack of bioassay for 


the period in question appeared to be due to an 


oversight. And according to the Joint 


Company/Union Safety Committee Performance 


Assurance Verification Form, the individual was 


subsequently entered into a computer database 


which should automatically initiate a request 


for analysis. And a second Performance 

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Assurance Verification Form that was contained 


in this package stated that the employee had no 


problems getting bioassays subsequent to that 


corrective action. The immediate supervisor’s 


response does indicate that the dosimetry badge 


was in fact changed for the first and second 


quarters of ’88 and on January -- January 24th
 

of ’89. According to a letter from the 


Committee to the employee the corrective 


actions were taken including training employees 


on the appropriate frequency of urinalysis, 


dosimetry badge change, and they updated a -- 


one of the Rocky Flats policy manuals. So our 


evaluation of this. Depends on the specifics 


of this situation. But if -- if this situation 


arose during the conduct of a NIOSH dose 


reconstruction there’s obviously a period here 


where the employee did not have a bioassay 


result and that might constitute a gap in his 


monitoring so we would have a couple of 


options. There are several strategies 


available. We could assign dose based on coworker data. That would be one option. Again 


we’re not talking about a specific co-worker. 


What we’re talking about is a claimant 

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favorable percentile value from all of the 


monitored workers at the site. On the other 


hand, if -- if the employee had bioassay 


results prior to and following this gap period 


we may not even have to go to co-worker data. 


We could use his own data and then interpolate 


through the gap. This does appear to be a 


concern but it appears to be an isolated 


example -- an isolated failure to follow the 


established proceedings and there was 


corrective action. So we don’t really view 


this --


 MR. GRIFFON: This is interesting to me more on 


-- on -- in light of our last topic, the D&D 


topic. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The question of whether, you 


know, this person, this individual had a 


corrective action. But he might have been a 


very outspoken individual and -- and safety-


conscious individual and say what’s going on. 


And the squeaky wheel gets the grease. They 


fixed his problem but how many of those 


problems were out there. That’s the bigger D&D 


question I think we want to consider. So this 

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-- this issue I think you’re right. It -- It 


can certainly be handled in a DR if you had coworker data and stuff or he -- he had later 


urinalysis, no problem. I think it might be 


interesting to reflect on your D&D, you know -- 


conclusions on your D&D work period data that 


you’re going to bring us next meeting or soon. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. Keep in mind, too, Mark, this 


is -- this is from 1989 so it’s before the D&D 


period. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It’s -- yeah. It would -- It 


would have been after -- I’m guessing it would 


have been when they started instituting a 


longer -- maybe -- maybe it wouldn’t. 


 DR. NETON: This would be before 


(unintelligible) 35 came in. Thirty-five was 


the end of ’89. 


 MR. GRIFFON: End of ’89? Yeah, it might have 


been just -- just before. You’re right. Okay. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Let me please explain the safety 


concern process out at Rocky Flats in reality. 


The subcontractors, Colorado building trades, 


had their own safety system, the 


(unintelligible) team they called themselves. 


In all the meetings I had attended, the 

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Colorado building trades had zero contribution 


on safety concerns. In the Monday meetings, 


Robert Carr (ph), the CEO, and all the vice-


presidents, when they get to building trades, 


does building trades have any issues, it’s 


none. All the issues were taken on through the 


steelworkers. Even if they had building trades 


issues, subcontractor issues, guard issues, 


they were all taken on through the steelworkers 


and mostly the -- the RCP’s, the rat packs. So 


that was for fear of retaliation or reprisal. 


You have to remember that the subcontractors 


were there for a short period of time to do the 


work and if they squeaked they were removed. 


And removed by their own union because the 


building trades, the foreman on the jobs are 


union members, okay. So the safety concerns 


were brought up through the steelworkers on 


behalf of a whole lot of people. You just need 


to know how it really worked. They couldn’t 


remove us because we were pretty strong. We 


were the home team if you will with the -- the 


prime contractor. And we had the advantage of 


the DOE 628’s, the whistle-blowers, but the 


subs didn’t. Make -- Make no bones about 

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that. And their -- their whole safety culture 


was totally different. It was -- it’s unsafe 


not to bring a paycheck home and feed the 


family. So you really need to take that into 


consideration. 


 DR. MAURO: But they did have access to you, 


your organization. In other words, if they had 


a grievance and they had a problem as a lower 


tier subcontractor -- 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Right. 


 DR. MAURO: -- did they have recourse or were 


they just victims of the situation? 


 MR. DEMAIORI: What they did is they went and 


they whispered into one of our guy’s ears and 


then we took it up as our cause. 


DR. MAURO: So you just took it as your cause. 


MR. DEMAIORI: Right. Absolutely. You know, 


they’d say come -- go over there and look at 


this. You know, there’s nothing I can do about 


it but this isn’t -- and it would reflect in 


our process. So we took the brunt of, you 


know, the -- the whole thing. And we did it 


for years and that’s why they call it a Joint 


Company/Union Safety concern. If you’ll also 


look at the salaried people. Go to the 

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electronic database, and you’ll have one 


salaried safety concern to 1,000 steelworker 


concerns because the salaried people were at 


will. Employment’s at will. You got a 


problem, maybe you need to go. And that’s more 


of a salaried mentality also. So a lot of 


salaried people left if they had problems. 


It’s what you said, you’re not sure if you’d 


sign that as acceptance. A lot of them just 


said see ya. And so, you know, you have to 


understand the steelworkers were, for the 


safety program, the voice for the whole 


facility. 


 DR. ULSH: It’s not clear to me whether this 


particular individual, what category he would 


have fallen into, whether it was salaried or 


sub or steelworker. From what you’re saying 


there was a good chance he was a steelworker. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Yeah, probably 90-some percent. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Tony, how far did the building 


trades go back at Rocky Flats? 


 MR. DEMAIORI: They built Rocky Flats. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: But during the operation were 


there building trades people and steelworkers 


people throughout? 

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 MR. DEMAIORI: Yes. Yes. The building trades 


contractually had new construction. The 


steelworkers production and maintenance. And 


then in the end we split the D&D. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: We had HCA’s; they had CA’s. So 


we kind of changed the direct. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: The kind of informal 


arrangement that you’ve described, so it went 


back all the way to the beginning? 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Absolutely. There’s 


jurisdictional lines from the ‘50s. Colorado 


building trades, like I said, built Rocky 


Flats. They -- you know, we were talking about 


Eddie Pride, Charlie Pride, the singer’s 


brother. He was an electrician at Rocky Flats, 


Colorado building trades, until the end and 


then he came over to the steelworkers. But he 


worked there 20 years with the building trades. 


 MR. GIBSON: Brant, this is Mike Gibson. And 


I’m not trying to be argumentative and I’m not 


trying to throw wrenches into this thing. I --


I think you guys -- I think NIOSH is doing the 


best they can with a terrible, sloppy record 


system the DOE had. And so I guess my concern 

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on this issue is if this claim is legitimate, 


in other words, missed time that this gentleman 


or lady was monitored and there could have been 


missed dose, if you guys have to rely on coworker data I fall back to your original 


example of you guys sitting in this meeting 


room. And Larry may have 400 times less 


exposure than the person sitting next to you. 


So that’s just to me as a Board member, and I’m 


just trying to express my opinion, that’s where 


I feel somewhat -- and I’m not saying you guys 


are not doing a good job and I know you’re 


trying. But that’s why I’m uncomfortable with 


-- sometimes with co-worker data. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, I understand your concern, 


Mike, and you’re not the first to have 


expressed that. I know that the petitioners, 


and we’ve heard it in -- in some worker 


comments are concerned about that, too. And I 


think the thing that you have to keep in mind, 


Mike, is that we don’t rely on co-worker data 


from a particular individual for exactly that 


reason. Instead we rely on the entire 


monitored population and take the highest -- 


okay, let me rephrase that. We take -- in some 

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cases we take 95 -- 95th percentile of everyone 


who is monitored at the site in -- in 


situations where we think there was a potential 


for significant radiation exposure for exactly 


those reasons. 


 MR. GIBSON: Right. And -- And I understand 


that and I, you know -- I -- again, I think you 


guys are trying to do a good job. I’m not 


saying you’re not. That -- And that’s 


probably -- that is probably claimant 


favorable. And, you know, I -- I don’t want to 


see anyone compensated that doesn’t deserve it, 


but I certainly don’t want to see anyone that 


deserves compensation be denied based on the 


system. And, you know, so I just -- again, I’m 


not trying to be argumentative but I -- I guess 


that’s why I just try to -- I look into the 


weeds on things. 


 DR. ULSH: I understand. I agree with you 


completely, Mike. I mean it’s much more 


important that someone who deserves 


compensation is not denied unfairly. That’s 


our primary concern. That -- That -- The 


practical implication of that is that some 


people who -- I don’t want to say don’t deserve 

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it but --


 MR. GIBSON: Well, right. Right. 


 DR. ULSH: There were more people paid than -- 


than --


 MR. GIBSON: I think -- I think we know what 


we mean but I just -- I don’t want to see 


anyone that deserves it not get it. I mean, 


you know, $100,000 is nothing for a life, for 


going through cancer but that’s just why -- I 


guess that’s why I push issues sometimes is, 


you know, I want to try to make sure. And I 


know you guys are doing the same but I just 


wanted to raise the issue. 


 DR. ULSH: All right. Thanks. Move on to the 


next one, Mark? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Sure. 


 DR. ULSH: The next one is 89-214 and the 


concern that was expressed is that, and this is 


according -- the established procedures are not 


being followed -- and this is in quotes 


actually on the sheet -- “Personal and 


Confidential, Personnel Dosimetry records each 


quarter.” And if you look at the supervisor 


response on this it indicates that it’s not a 


safety issue and it goes on to state that any 

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employee with a similar concern will have their 


personal dosimetry record cut out from the 


master record and presented on an individual 


basis. And the employee indicated satisfaction 


with that result on the form. Now, as near as 


we can tell this appeared to be an issue that 


occurred not just at Rocky Flats but at some 


other sites. And that is that periodic 


dosimetry results were posted publicly on a 


master list. This -- This particular employee 


and certainly others were concerned about their 


personal information being posted in a public 


place. And that would certainly have privacy 


implications and this concern appears to be 


related to that. So therefore it doesn’t 


appear that this is a data integrity issue. 


It’s more of a Privacy Act issue. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: If you look at the data concern 


that was before HIPA, and that was back when I 


told you in the last working session that, you 


know, some supervisors used dose record as a 


determination of productivity during the Cold 


War. You know, you didn’t work hard enough 


this week; look at your dose compared to your 


brothers. 

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 DR. ULSH: So I can certainly see where 


employees would be concerned about their 


personal information being posted in a public 


place for everyone to read and that appears to 


be what this issue is about. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: He probably worried about being 


chastised over the amount of productivity. 


 DR. ULSH: That could very well be. 


DR. MAURO: Was that a badge of honor then? 


When you were posted and you had a high dose 


was that a badge of honor? 


MR. DEMAIORI: Yeah, if you thought that being 


a hard worker was, if that was your mindset, 


absolutely. You know, that’s -- they had -- 


and like you said, three of us could be working 


the same job but you could be living under 


gloves and we could be practicing 


(unintelligible) you know, and bias the fact 


that you were the better worker even though 


you’re living in the gloves. It doesn’t mean 


you’re productive. It just means you’re -- 


you’re taking the dose. Absolutely. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But not really an issue relevant 


to the, reconstructing dose. 


 DR. ULSH: The next one is 89-255. We’ve only 

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got two more to go including this one. The 


concern that was expressed with regard to lack 


of notification if a high accumulated dose 


equivalent trend had been set. This one was 


hard to interpret, hard to piece together what 


it was about. But according to the resolution, 


according to a memo from representatives of the 


Joint Company/Union Safety Committee to the 


employee it said that OHP has taken the 


position that they do have meetings with 


individual employees and their management if 


the target limits are exceeded. In addition, 


the individual employee exposure records are 


available upon request by that particular 


employee. No corrective actions were required 


by the Committee. Again in our evaluation, the 


meaning of this concern wasn’t entirely clear 


to me and I don't know, maybe Bob or Tony or 


someone who was at the site might have a little 


more insight on this. But -- But it seems to 


indicate that the worker was concerned that -- 


that they were not notified when their trends 


in dose would eventually put them over some 


target dose limits, maybe an administrative 


limit perhaps. If that interpretation is 

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correct it wouldn’t necessarily constitute a 


data integrity issue although, you know, a 


worker would certainly be concerned about 


knowing that kind of thing. But it doesn’t 


appear that it would prevent us from doing dose 


reconstruction if we’ve interpreted this 


correctly. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: In 1989 we were continuing to 


reduce our targeted dose rates at -- at the 


time, our administrative doses. And so any 


time a worker was about to exceed the 


administrative limits, the worker felt that 


they were in jeopardy. And that’s why the 


safety concern would have been filed. We kept 


lowering the administrative limits to the point 


around 1989 where they were so low we couldn’t 


work. And the company was getting bonus after 


bonus for lowering the limits. And then we 


started to go back to work after ’89. You 


know, we had residues we were working on, 


packaging plutonium, and so we started to 


increase the limits and then the average worker 


felt that we were putting them in jeopardy 


because now we’re increasing limits that we 


said we were lowering to protect them. So I 

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think this is where you’ll see this. They’re 


saying, hey, you knew this job was going to 


double and triple the administrative limits 


that we had set and now you’re asking for 


variances; you’re asking for exceptions; you’re 


asking -- and I believe that that’s where this 


comes from. 


 DR. ULSH: And like you said before, that could 


have implications for the worker in terms of 


being eligible for premium pay or overtime pay, 


that kind of thing, you know. So the worker, 


you know, might want to know about this. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Well, I think on this one in 


particular the worker felt that if you lowered 


the limits then those are the limits you should 


stick with. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Stick with, right. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Yeah, I think that’s more -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- changing it back to higher. 


MR. DEMAIORI: Yeah. If you told me last year 


that you’re lowering it to keep you safe, well, 


then this year you’re not keeping me safe. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


MR. DEMAIORI: I believe that’s a part of it. 


 DR. ULSH: So again it’s an important issue. 
I 
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mean there’s no question about that. But --


 MR. DEMAIORI: But it’s productivity versus 


safety. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But it doesn’t necessarily impair 


your ability. 


 DR. ULSH: Exactly. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. The last one is 92-036. And 


the concern that the employee expressed was we 


have not received information from external 


dosimetry concerning readings from our TLD’s 


for the past year. I have called on them -- I 


have called them on several occasions and have 


been told that they have computer problems. 


This is important safety data used to track 


employee exposure. And this sounds rather 


similar to one of the earlier safety concerns, 


that it has more to do with timely notification 


of the worker about their particular dosimetry 


results. And according to the supervisor 


response, external dosimetry had been contacted 


and they were going to provide the TLD data 


and, you know, they’ve recognized that that’s 


an important issue. The employee indicated 


satisfaction with the results and a letter from 

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the Joint Company/Union Safety Committee to the 


employee said that the Committee has verified 


implementation of the safety concern and has 


closed it. Again, that appears to -- appears 


to be a lack of timely reporting dosimetry 


results to the employees. Now, there’s no 


indication here that they were in fact 


unmonitored but just that the results weren’t 


reported to them in a timely manner. So again 


we don’t feel that (unintelligible) dose 


reconstruction. And that wraps up the safety 


concerns. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think the only action 


incumbent upon us is to take a look at these 


evaluations. Does the O-drive file include the 


summary as well as the individual safety 


concern documentation? 


 DR. ULSH: Right now currently on the O-drive 


I’ve just placed the -– well, for instance 


here’s an example, the individual safety 


concerns and my supporting documentation. As 


soon as I go home today I’ll include this 


document. It’s not on there right now. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Kathy’s on her way back to 


Washington, too. 

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 DR. ULSH: Yeah, I think I might need to 


correct that, too. Karin just pointed out to 


me that on the -- the -- our evaluation of the 


last one, 92-026, the last -- very last 


sentence. I said as such, it does have data 


integrity or other SEC implications. I forgot 


the word not. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Does not. This could change the 


meaning there just a little bit. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Brant and Joe? Are these -- I 


-- I’ve lost actually the issue of your last ­

– I was focusing on Y-12 but are -- are these 


the issues derived from the affidavits that are 


in the petitions or is that a separate set? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think the first one -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: First one was? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- 71-4 I thought was one of 


those. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: It says may be an issue. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I recognized that one but I 


didn’t recognize the others. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, the same ones, 4 and 


206. See the ones that have matrix issue 


numbers next to them? 

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 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Those are the ones that came 


from the affidavits. The other ones were ones 


that were identified by the description, the -- 


she picked the ones that had dosimetry or badge 


issues without getting deeply into all the -- 


the discussion and the resolution or anything 


like that. So I think what this demonstrates 


is a lot of these just didn’t pan out to be 


specifically discrepancies or problems with 


data reliability per se. I think we need to 


look at this a little bit more. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So my question is where are we 


on -- on resolving the -- so that the number -- 


well, the number of complaints. You tried to 


address it generically and I -- I understand. 


But there are a number of complaints other than 


a high radiation area or the supervisors were 


reducing my dose to zero. Do we -- Do we now 


have a catalog of that that we’re going to 


resolve? Or how are we going to address -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, this -- this whole thing 


is --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- address the -- the -- do we 


have a list of those that we’re going to 

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address? 


 MS. JESSEN: Right now we’re putting together a 


table that addresses all of those issues. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, great. 


MS. JESSEN: It’s not quite complete yet. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. 


MS. JESSEN: But it will address -- currently 


we have 23 issues in this matrix right here, 


and we’re addressing all of those issues that 


were brought up in the petition as well as the 


additional issues that Tony brought up to 


Brant. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. Good. 


MS. JESSEN: So that’s currently under 


development. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So we’ll go affidavit by -- 


wherever there are sort of substantive -- data 


fabrication, allegations, and those kinds of 


things and go through them one by one? 


 MS. JESSEN: In this matrix everything is 


addressed that was in the petition. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Great. 


 MS. JESSEN: That includes the affidavits. It 


also includes certain statements that were in 


the petition that are not affidavits. 

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 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. Right. I remember I 


tried to compile initially, you know, made a 


very rough cut at it. So I’m very glad that 


you’ve kind of taken it to the next step. 


 MS. JESSEN: It’s not quite done yet. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I appreciate that. 


 MS. JESSEN: But we’re working on it. 


 DR. ULSH: We’ve gone through the petition and 


we’ve pulled out -- there was -- where there 


were specific examples. Those are included in 


here and also --


 MR. GRIFFON: That should overlap with the ones 


we have in this -- this matrix that we 


developed in the working group, right? 


 MS. JESSEN: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Because the back 20 or so were 


pulled from there. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Does that include the one -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: It might be more extensive. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- one or two that we -- I’m 


not going to mention any names -- that we 


culled out after the Denver meeting for 


special, you know, focus? One -- Let’s see 


here. 


 DR. ULSH: We can talk about the -- what people 

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have said. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: It’s hard to -- it’s hard to 


block out names. 


 DR. ULSH: I know what you’re talking about. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: One is -- One of those is 


pending and one of those is resolved. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. But that’s part of 


this -- this group of 22 I would assume. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think so. 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Talk about the stuff that 


people have talked about in a public setting we 


can talk about --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: -- without worrying about the 


Privacy Act. And Jennifer Thompson is one case 


since she talked about her -- 


 MR. DEMAIORI: And Larry Rand. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, I think that’s another one. 


MR. DEMAIORI: He spoke publicly. 


 DR. ULSH: Jennifer Thompson is going to be in 


this table in terms of the status of where we 


are with Ms. Thompson. Just to refresh your 


memory we talked -- she sent in a list of 


questions after one of our earlier Board 

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meetings, I think it was after the Boston Board 


meeting. And she talked about a particular 


incident that she was concerned about where her 


badge showed a positive dose and dosimetry -- 


she said dosimetry could not come up with a 


reason for that and so they assigned her zero. 


And so she’s concerned about that. I took a 


look through her RAD file and pulled out the 


only dose reconstruction -- extended dose 


reconstruction conducted by the plant that I 


found and it came out at the Denver Board 


meeting that wasn’t the incident that she was 


concerned about so I looked at the wrong one. 


So what we’ve proposed -- what we have proposed 


is that we get Ms. Thompson to sign a waiver 


and send it in and then we’ll send out a copy 


of her records to her and also to SC&A and then 


we can have a conference call: us, SC&A and -- 


and Ms. Thompson. We can look through her 


record and, you know, try to locate what 


exactly -- what is it that she’s concerned 


about. I sent her I believe around May 5th , 


and then I sent a follow-up e-mail two weeks 


later so I guess that would be around the 19th
 

but that’s the Friday. I haven’t heard back 

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from her yet but as soon as we get that in 


we’ll (unintelligible). 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Yeah, and I’d like to state on 


that for a moment that Jennifer has been 


working on a nuclear decommissioning proposal. 


That’s an interim proposal, so she simply 


hasn’t had the time. She’s been working 16 


hours a day, six/seven days a week the last 30­

plus days. And professionally she just doesn’t 


have the time. However, I’ve delivered the 


proposal today so -- so she -- she -- she will 


be available for the next couple weeks. And 


she -- she will provide that. It was just 


simply she didn’t have the time. 


DR. ULSH: Okay. Well, that’s good. 


MR. DEMAIORI: And she’s got to feed her family 


so --


 DR. ULSH: I’m glad that she got my e-mail. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: No, she got the e-mail and -- 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. Good. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: I’ve also got an e-mail on it. 


She told me to articulate that in fact it’s not 


negligence. It’s just simply didn’t have the 


time. 


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that. 


 DR. MAURO: I’d like to bring something up. 


Tony and I were having a little side 


conversation. I think it has a relevance to 


everything we do. You have certainly presented 


in this particular instance, in my mind, the 


response -- a well researched response. Each 


of several of the concerns that I guess they 


were in the affidavit or expressed. And what ­

- what was this -- what was the trigger for 


each one of these, and particularly the one for 


(unintelligible)? 


 DR. ULSH: Those were the safety concern 


documents that Kathy was to -- 


 DR. MAURO: Right. Did they go back to a 


person’s particular affidavit or -- or a 


particular statement made by an individual and 


these are just follow-up action items that 


Kathy identified we weren’t pursuing? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: I guess this came out of her 


site visits document reviews -- 


 DR. MAURO: Okay. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- and interviews. 


 DR. MAURO: Those triggered it. You see --


Let me tell you where I’m going with this. 

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We’re speaking amongst ourselves now as health 


physicists and the rationale between, you know, 


what an individual may have some concerns about 


and then when -- when you explain what action 


you made to find out. But in -- in the end I 


think we’re -- we’re doing -- the most 


important thing we’re doing right now is we 


should be speaking amongst ourselves. We have 


to do that because SC&A is going to make a 


recommendation to the -- to the working group, 


and the working group will, of course, 


regarding these issues. But, I think, and this 


is where Tony and I were just speaking on the 


side. You know, really the question becomes 


the person that raised the concern originally, 


if that person was sitting in the room right 


now, each one of these individuals, would they 


feel as if they got treated right? That is we 


looked into the matter; we found out what 


rationally transpired and in fact there is a 


good reason for what happened and you were, in 


fact, treated right. I think it’s -- I'm not 


sure how we do this but somehow this is the one 


place we have to build that bridge where there 


is this -- where each of the individuals that 

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either spoke at the Denver meeting, that either 


spoke to Kathy during the interview or have an 


affidavit, I -- I would like to see -- I’d like 


them to get a degree of satisfaction that in 


fact a genuine effort was made. Because I feel 


right now, reading this, that certainly a 


genuine effort was made to follow -- to bring 


this to ground. But I’m looking at it from the 


eyes of a health physicist listening to what 


transpired. And in that case Tony is -- is -- 


now, we have all these folks here, all right. 


Are we -- now, you heard some of the answers to 


some of these questions. Now -- Right now, 


Tony, do you feel as if, yeah, I think that it 


looks like some answers have been resolved or 


are you a little bit still uncomfortable now? 


You know, maybe this isn’t -- the whole story 


isn’t really told here; there’s more to the 


story? 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Yeah, when I look at this for 


me, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you 


went through our safety concern process and 


told every concern requiring dosimetry. This 


would tell me that this is the symptom and not 


the disease. What’s the symptom? There’s 

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problems over and over and over again. 


Communication problems from the employer to the 


employee, from the internal dosimetry 


department to the employee. These -- These 


are problems and they’re showing a bigger 


problem. You know, I -- and I can’t speak for 


the rest of the plants because I most certainly 


have only worked at Rocky Flats, but I believe 


a couple working sessions ago you articulated 


you’re sorry that the employees at Rocky Flats 


didn’t have confidence in their internal 


dosimetry department. Well, they most 


certainly didn’t. To quote my predecessor, 


Jerry Hardin, he considers this whole process 


to be witchcraft. Bob, I’m sure you’ve heard 


that from Jerry a time or two. He doesn’t 


believe that you can reconstruct dose 


successfully because you don’t have all of the 


facts. Personally I'm not sure you can. And 


all these concerns -- if one person raises a 


concern there’s a hundred other people that 


feel the same way, that didn’t get their 


results on time, that were given zeros without 


explanations, who knew that they were working 


as hard as the person next to them. And so, 

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you know, if one person raised the concern 


there were a hundred people that wanted to. 


And so to me this says, you know, total lack of 


confidence in the program. And then if 


somebody’s dying of cancer for you to look at 


them and say, no, that zero was really because 


you didn’t turn in your badge. Well, you know, 


I don’t need to articulate that person’s 


feelings anymore. Okay. I’m just going to 


tell you that, you know, with the program 


changing so many times, with -- with -- with 


the studies, epidemiology studies -- one says 


radiation’s safe for you; another says no, it’s 


not; with the lawsuits. This is why we’re 


here. This is absolutely why we’re here. This 


is why this legislation was enacted, to 


compensate. That’s the reason the steelworkers 


are participating at the Rocky Flats site in 


particular is because we don’t believe that you 


can successfully reconstruct dose. We felt the 


petition fell within the guidelines. We felt 


that one, exposure to plutonium is harmful, 


that it does cause cancer. And two, we didn’t 


feel that we were getting a fair shake on 


compensation. Not enough of our people were 

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coming back saying, hey, that was great 


legislation and it really took care of my 


family. To the contrary, you know, we keep 


hearing the dollar number come up and how many 


dollars have been paid. But they are dollars 


to the same people. It’s not being spread out. 


So, you know, I’m just going to tell you that, 


you know, these safety concerns, and there’s 


many of them. This is just a small, small 


thing. They indicate the problems of the 


dosimetry program. And not just technical 


problems. Perception problems. So, you know, 


that’s what they indicate to me. And, you 


know, when -- when an employee is satisfied 


that’s an exhaustion, okay. You gave him your 


best answer; what more can I do. So, okay, I’m 


satisfied until the next time. I guess what 


the concern really says is I’m watching you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think I’m --


 MR. DEMAIORI: I want to make you do the right 


thing. I believe that’s what the concern 


really says. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean I think I’ve asked this 


before but Kathy identified this list of safety 


reports from the database. Is that -- Is that 

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how she --


 MR. FITZGERALD: No, think what Arjun was 


saying --


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- was she did an on-site 


visit, did interviews. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Went through and looked at the 


documents and came across the safety concerns 


file; noted that there were safety concerns 


after a certain time period. I think the -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, because that was my -- I 


don’t think I mentioned this before. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Before ’71 most of them are -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. That -- That’s the 


case. And she called the ones out that looked 


like they would speak to -- to the reliability 


of dosimetry. And I think what’s useful here 


is I think it shows that even though the titles 


and descriptors for these safety concerns are 


dosimetry, the actual issues are -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: A little bit different? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. Which is useful to 


see. 

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 MR. DEMAIORI: Yeah, she pulled that out of my 


files. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. Okay. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: And unfortunately my files don’t 


go back. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Now, the company has electronic 


files of all the safety concerns. I mean our 


program has been around since at least Rockwell 


and probably Dow Chemical and so, you know, but 


I’m telling you that this just shows a lack of 


trust to me. You asked me how I felt about 


this. To me if we have these problems where 


you’re not going to show me my dose even though 


I get it quarterly, I’ve always gotten it 


quarterly, but all of a sudden I don’t get a 


record. And then when I do get a record 


there’s a zero on it. And then when I question 


the zero you didn’t turn in your badge. This 


speaks of conspiracy. It does to me. So I 


think, hey, wait a minute. I always got my 


records before. And that’s what that tells me, 


why is today different. Why did you take me 


off the quarterly and put me on the yearly? 


Well, lack of manpower. Well, that’s not good 

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enough to protect me. That’s what that speaks 


of. 


 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Just telling you. 


 MR. GIBSON: Tony, if you’re done -- 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Sorry. 


 MR. GIBSON: I would just like to add to your 


comment. I’ve never been like put on the Rocky 


site but I have spent 23 years at Mound and, 


you know, I guess all I want to say is, you 


know, this -- this lack of manpower and -- and 


cutting money in the RAD area and not having 


enough dosimeters and hard time finding 


records, and I know it’s -- and again I’m not 


pointing a finger at NIOSH but, you know what? 


If you people went to them and asked them to 


show you records of if they needed a new van, 


if they needed a $250,000 or half-million 


dollar front-end loader, if they needed 


material for a job, they could lay tons of 


material on you and show that every bit of that 


came in on time, on price and everything else, 


and they met their schedule and they got their 


award fee. But when it comes to radiation 


records for some reason it’s like you guys have 

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to pull teeth to get them. And there’s like it 


seems there’s always an excuse as to why this 


is. 


 MR. LITTLE: Mike, this is Craig Little. I’m 


with the ORAU team. I -- I -- I do not 


believe that it is difficult to get dosimetry 


records out of Rocky Flats. We’ve not been 


denied a single thing we’ve asked for and 


they’ve been very forthcoming with things and 


in very short order. 


 MR. GIBSON: I'm sorry. Who’s speaking? 


 MR. LITTLE: Craig Little. I’m with the ORAU 


team. 


 MR. GIBSON: And you’re with ORAU team? 


 MR. LITTLE: Yes. 


 MR. GIBSON: Do you have contractor or DOE 


experience or employment, ex-employment? 


 MR. GRIFFON: You worked at Rocky. Or no you 


didn’t. 


 MR. LITTLE: I did not work at Rocky. But I’m 


telling you that when we have asked for records 


we have gotten anything we wanted and in the 


time frame that we needed it with the exception 


of -- not an exception -- with the constraint 


that the vast majority of the records are 

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stored at the Denver Federal Archive Center and 


they have to go be retrieved physically. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. Let me ask you one more 


time then. Have you had contractor or DOE 


employment, DOE contractor employment? 


 MR. LITTLE: I have had contractor employment. 


 MR. GIBSON: DOE? 

 MR. LITTLE: Yes. 

 MR. GIBSON: Okay. I just wanted to -- 

 MR. LITTLE: Not at --

 MR. GIBSON: -- put that on the record, too, 

and just as I laid my DOE experience on the 


record. 


 MR. LITTLE: I was in a --


 MR. GIBSON: I will tell you as a union 


president, an ex-union president I have had a 


lot of trouble. I’ve had to go to Congress to 


get information I wanted so, you know, I just 


want that on the record, too, that maybe you 


didn’t have trouble but I did. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. I think -- I think that some 


of this, Mike, might be that I mean NIOSH is 


the government and you’ve got the resources to 


deal with the problem whereas, you know, with 


individual workers the system might operate a 

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little bit differently. But I second Craig’s 


opinion -- only as it applies to Rocky Flats, 


we found the records people being very helpful, 


very timely and certainly have no complaints 


about their efforts to provide us the records 


we requested. In fact, on the contrary. 


 MR. GIBSON: Again, that’s -- and that’s fine. 


You know, I’m not -- I’m just -- I’m giving you 


my experience. I -- I heard what Tony said 


and, you know, I just -- I’m one that’s been in 


the field, too, again. And like I said, this ­

- this is supposed to be a fair and balanced 


debate and I just want my point on the record 


also. I’ve heard -- I’ve heard the other side 


of the story and I want this side of the story 


on the table. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Tony has another comment. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Yeah, I would like to talk about 


access to the individual. You know -- You 


know, I can’t speak on behalf of NIOSH or ORAU 


but currently Rocky Flats is taking six to nine 


months for the individuals to access their 


records from the Federal Center through the 


Privacy Act. If you want to be compensated and 


you request your records it’s six -- minimum of 

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six -- six months for the individual. In the 


past we used to request records and we got them 


blacked out because of security. We mentioned 


a name and maybe a date and an end and a The 


and Thee and okay, you’ve got 27 pages of 


blackout, which also helps support the fact 


that there’s a lot of distrust out there when 


you couldn’t even access your own records. But 


currently our people are having a heck of a 


time getting their records. They’re having a 


heck of a time getting records for employment 


verification. They’re having a heck of a time 


getting records even from the union to say, 


hey, I was a union member so they don’t have to 


pay initiation dues to another union on a new 


job. And it’s because we don’t have the 


infrastructure. We’re no longer there. My 


collective bargaining agreement was a 15-day 


turnaround to an employee’s medical, 


radiological -- it didn’t matter, 15 days. Now 


it’s a minimum of six months, a minimum. So --


So -- So I do congratulate you guys on your 


ability to pull records but we don’t have that 


ability and neither do our people. And that 


also adds to the frustration. And then I’m 

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going to take a step further. Like with 


Jennifer Thompson, like she testified, she’s 


only had three radiological incidents in the 14 


years she worked there. Just three. So for 


you not to have all three of those, wow, that 


really draws a lot of questions into how 


accurate your ability is to pull all the 


records as it does with me. I mean it’s not 


like she -- she was a chemical operator and had 


been in a hundred different incidents. She was 


a media relations manager and had three. So 


her file should be relatively easy to go 


through and to come out with those three. And 


then I want to speak to the incident you did 


come up with. A lot of people -- A lot of 


people at Rocky Flats left their dosimeter 


badge on their PPE. When they undressed -- it 


came out of the PCM II for full-body 


monitoring. They dropped their PPE in the 


clothes bin. They walked out; 10 minutes, 20 


minutes, oh, my God, I don’t have my dosimeter. 


Well, where were you last? Oh, I left it at 


the step-off pad. Shoot back in there, dig 


through the coveralls. There’s the dosimeter. 


There are no follow-up investigations. There 

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are no follow-up investigations. There are no 


doses being assigned in those cases. Heck, 


internal dosimetry doesn’t even know the badge 


was lost until they read a report if a report 


is filed. In Jennifer’s case she insisted on 


an IRI, self-reporting it. Had she been a 


steel worker it would have been no harm, no 


foul, I got my badge. Okay. So -- So you 


really need to understand that, you know, when 


you report to us that, you know, we -- we 


assigned the average dose of the person on the 


crew you even lose more credibility because we 


know those things don’t happen in that kind of 


an incident. I mean they just don’t. This is 


the sort of thing that happens day to day and 


there is no dose because the badge was on the 


step-off pad. Okay. There is no dose to 


reconstruct. Nobody would even bother. I mean 


it’s just not a real thing. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I guess this --


 MR. DEMAIORI: It’s not. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Just to -- to reflect on this, I 


mean that’s part of the reason it’s -- the work 


group is drilling down into some of these 


issues on the data reliability because of the 

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concern expressed by the petitioners and by the 


-- the public over the records and the fact 


that they are concerned that they were, you 


know, manipulated or whatever. So I think it’s 


very important that the Advisory Board come to 


grips with this and be able to independently 


say, you know, yes or no, there’s problems here 


or there’s not. At least that’s another level 


of -- it’s not going to certainly answer 


everyone’s concerns I’m sure, but at least it’s 


another level of independence. I wanted to get 


back to the -- because we’re at quarter of 


five. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Can I make one comment real 

quickly? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Sure. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I agree with you. I think it is 

important that you guys are involved and 


engaged in -- in this trek with us trying to 


find out where the truth lies. I’d like to 


comment back to the -- Tony though. 


 MR. GIBSON: Larry, could you speak up, please? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, I’ll try to speak up. 
I 


want to make it very clear that what you were 


talking about Tony, I don’t disagree with what 

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-- your account of individual workers trying to 


get access to their data, their records through 


the Privacy Act. I think that’s something that 


I would encourage you to encourage those people 


to go to the DOE and make those complaints to 


the DOE. They’re the ones that are holding up 


Privacy Act responses to you all. But as I 


learned about this out in Denver I was very 


quick to get to that person who raised this in 


my awareness and say to them, even if you’re 


not -- this person was not a claimant but he 


was talking about having difficulty getting his 


dose records through the Privacy Act request. 


And I said, ask us; we’ll help you; we’ll get 


it for you. And even though he’s not a 


claimant we’re -- we’re going to do that. And 


I want it also known that we don’t look for the 


type of data that your -- your folks are 


requesting under Privacy Act. They’re probably 


requesting their cumulative dose data, their 


annual summary data or whatever records DOE has 


on them that they think they will provide under 


Privacy Act. We go beyond that. We don’t take 


annual summary data. We don’t take cumulative 


dose data. We want the original data. And we 

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have been very fortunate of late, in the last 


three or four years I would say, of getting DOE 


to respond very quickly to our needs. There’s 


been a lot of leverage placed on these claimant 


needs for their dose data and we’ve been very ­

- I think very fortunate of late. If it would 


have been a different time, as Dr. Bistline and 


Mark Griffon knows -- if it would have been 


eight years ago, we would still have been 


waiting on that first claim to get out the door 


probably. But I hear you loud and clear. I 


want you to know that we’re standing to help if 


we can get anybody’s dose data to them, 


claimant or not. 


 MR. GIBSON: Larry, if I could just shortly 


respond, and I -- I appreciate what you said. 


But I was even -- I was even talking about when 


I was the elected representative of the people 


with their written consent, I couldn’t get 


their data. I got stonewalled and I will tell 


you this. I heard the records manager of the 


contractor telling the plant manager they were 


spending too much money trying to get records 


out once this bill passed. And they were in a 


turf war with DOE saying DOE needed to pay for 

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it and it not come out of site budget. So I 


don't know. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I don’t doubt what you say. 


 MR. GIBSON: I guess that’s probably changed 


now with a lot of these contractors shut down 


but --


MR. ELLIOTT: I’m not doubting what you say. 


I’m sure it’s accurate and -- and -- and it’s 


recent I know. But I’m just saying that we 


have worked very hard on the government side to 


get access to this information in a timely way. 


 MR. GIBSON: And I believe that. And I -- And 


I’m sure the claimants appreciate it. 


MR. ELLIOTT: And it’s because of the 


experience that you have just mentioned. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I think I just want to try 


to get back to finish up our agenda here if we 


can. The one thing I wanted to ask on the 


safety concern question. Has there been any 


attempt to -- there must be a database of these 


safety concerns? 


 DR. ULSH: I think again --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Remember the context of this. 


This was a very quick, abbreviated site visit 


in light of the fact that this was moving 

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relatively fast and we went ahead and did it. 


It wasn’t intentionally a long research 


project. It was in the context of the SEC. So 


she went to the site, talked to Tony, was able 


to identify safety concerns that had some 


bearing on dosimetry without even being able to 


investigate it, and use it as a sample. All 


these are samples. It’s not a perfect, you 


know, lengthy process -- 


 MR. DEMAIORI: And these are --


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- designed --


 MR. DEMAIORI: -- complaints. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- designed to be a sampling 


process and so I think this was to sample what 


was taken and I think certainly we’ve got the 


evaluation. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: It makes you want to look at 


it again but I -- I think -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I guess wondering, you know, if 


it is a sample, I guess I was just curious, 


especially on the zeroing dose or the frequency 


of bioassay -- those two stand out amongst 


these -- if -- if there was any way to key word 


search a database. 

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 MR. FITZGERALD: I was intrigued. I hadn’t 


heard this mentioned of the -- somebody having 


electronic records. Who would have that? 


 MR. GRIFFON: That’s what I --


 MR. DEMAIORI: I believe Stolar (ph) is in 


control of all records now. But we have a 


safety database out at Rocky Flats. Everything 


that was put on paper was put in the electronic 


data system. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: That may exist somewhere. 


Somebody has it. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Absolutely. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I hadn’t heard of that. That 


would be something that we need to talk about. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, that’s what I was going to 


say is if -- if -- because this issue is still 


looming out there and I think very important, 


that this concern about zeroing of doses. And 


if we went through safety concerns and did 


keyword searches and found that this concern 


was being raised over and over, you know. 


Maybe -- Maybe it would it would come up empty 


but I -- I wonder if it’s worth finding out if 


there’s a database and then doing keyword 


searches. 

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 MR. FITZGERALD: You said Stolar??? 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Well, Stolar’s got the contract 


now through (unintelligible). 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Oh, ORAU and everybody’s gone 


that --


 MR. GRIFFON: Do you know, Brant, if this 


database exists or -- 


 DR. ULSH: I don’t but I don’t have reason to 


doubt what Tony’s saying. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, right. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Well, yeah our human -- well, 


our IR department somehow was connected to the 


company side of the Joint Safety Union -- 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: -- Committee. At the time when 


I took over my job at the meeting was the 


company’s representative. And we -- we have an 


electronic database. I mean there’s always 


been a company representative on the company 


side of this Committee. And they reduced 


everything to -- to an electronic database. 


And everything I have is hard copy. 


 DR. ULSH: Right. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: And then --


 MR. GRIFFON: And the database would go back to 

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what time period do you know or all the way 


back? 


 MR. DEMAIORI: I believe it goes all the way 


back because -- because we’ve been active in 


safety from -- from the early ‘70s at least -- 


at least. You know, my records, as you saw, 


didn’t really pick up till ’86; well, almost 


nothing prior to ’86 as far as hard copy safety 


concerns. But we negotiated in the ‘70s Dow 


Chemical Company Union Safety Committee. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Mark, you had said that the 


research that NIOSH has done so far on the 


safety concerns, I think it -- it is worthwhile 


if there is a database to sample it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: But my -- my own kind of 


feeling on this whole question of deliberately 


manipulating the data records and zeroing out 


high doses and the kind of things that are 


there in the affidavit, the list that NIOSH is 


now making, it -- it would seem if there are 


these 23 instances, and if each one of those 


things can be tracked down -- because there are 


obviously people who felt very strongly that 


their doses were manipulated -- that I think 

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would -- would -- again I’m not sure how many 


communication -- they seem to be mostly 


communication type of issues. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: And so while it’s worthwhile to 


see whether they are data type of issues in 


safety concerns, I think we have got a good 


list of allegations of -- of data problems that 


it would seem to me, you know, without 


downgrading any of them, but it would seem to 


me that it would be very good to prove one way 


or another if those were -- those were 


followed. And then if you have John’s 


suggestion, at least we could sit down with a 


few of the people and look at the affidavits 


and say this is what we found. What do you 


think? And that would be pretty interesting, 


powerful. 


 MS. JESSEN: Well, in the evaluation report we 


address nine affidavits specifically. The nine 


that were in the first part of the petition we 


specifically addressed those in the report. In 


this matrix that I was talking about a little 


bit earlier we address all of them that came in 


with part A and part B. And in addition to the 

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-- in the petition there are also little 


sentences and statements of various other 


concerns that have been pulled out, not only by 


SC&A but by NIOSH as well. And we are 


addressing those as well, in addition to 


statements that were made to Brant from Tony. 


So there are a lot of -- a lot of issues that 


are being pulled together now and we’re doing a 


lot of research into those issues. So -- So 


they will be addressed. It’s just, you know, 


like Brant says, it just takes time to -- to 


pull all of this together. 


 DR. ULSH: Keep in mind, and I don’t want to 


mislead anyone about what the product is going 


to be. In some cases we’re going to pull the 


string as far as we can, and it’s going to be 


inconclusive probably. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. I mean I understand. I 


mean I understand there’s a resource component 


to this, too, and I understand sometimes 


searching this database for these titles that 


it can be misleading as we found out. 


A lot of it is reporting not necessarily the 


issue of zeroing badge or whatever. 


I -- I was just looking for another mechanism 

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maybe to look at whether it could be a systemic 


problem here or whether it was isolated cases. 


I think most of the affidavits in the petition 


are from later years as well, but -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: That’s true, where the workers 


were. 


MR. GRIFFON: Maybe not, maybe not. 


 DR. ULSH: Maybe not. There’s certainly some 


from earlier years. Right, Tony? I mean I 


think so. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: There’s --


 DR. ULSH: Not the ‘50s but -- 


 MR. DEMAIORI: Well, most of the guys from the 


’50s are dead. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah. 


 MR. DEMAIORI: I mean there’s no pun intended 


here but, you know, I offered a guy a job down 


at Los Alamos building bombs and he told me 


point blank everybody that I worked with is 


dead, Tone. I’m out of the business. Forget 


it. And that -- that is a prevalent attitude. 


I mean there’s not a lot of old chemical 


operators, experimental operators still alive 


from those days. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But I mean I just thought it was 

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worth identifying the (unintelligible) database 


and -- and looking at it and maybe considering 


whether it was feasible. I mean I don’t want 


to spend a lot of resources on leadings that 


are potential dead ends. If you had a hundred, 


you know, a hundred hits for the same sort of 


title, I’d be reluctant to -- to look at all of 


those certainly, you know. 


 DR. ULSH: We’ll ask -- We’ll ask Amy Wilson 


if she knows about the safety concern database. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. ULSH: And maybe we’ll do a couple of 


keyword searches and report back to you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I think that’s -- 


 DR. ULSH: At that point we can evaluate. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You probably don’t want to take 


it any further yet, you know. That’s for sure. 


 MR. GIBSON: Excuse me, Mark. Mark and 


everyone, this is Mike. I'm sorry to end a 


seven-hour stimulating conversation but as a 


single parent I got to get off here now and 


take my child to soccer tryouts. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I’ll hold -- I’ll hold down the 


work group otherwise. 


MR. GIBSON: But I just wanted to let you know 

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that I’d be signing off. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, Mike. Thanks. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. 


 MR. GIBSON: We will chat again. 


 DR. WADE: There’s not a quorum from the Board, 


so you can end your work. You can hold these 


people with your personality. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think we all have flights to 


catch so -- I think we want to move on past 


the safety concerns. I mean you gave -- 


 MR. GIBSON: I’ll be signing off so -- We’ve 


had a good conversation. Thank you all. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Thanks, Mike. 


 DR. WADE: Thanks. 


 MR. GIBSON: Bye. 


 DR. WADE: Bye. 


 MR. GRIFFON: After the safety concerns topic 


you -- you mentioned sort of your status on 


logbook reviews already. But the other things 


I had down here from -- from Joe’s memo report, 


external dose procedures. That was that other 


table I think. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: That was, yeah, the list 


there, the list of items from the dosimetry 


problem logbooks to see whether there’d be any 

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value from -- yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: We are checking -- we’ve talked with 


I think Joe Aldrich (phonetically) who is a 


past mentor of external dose dosimetry at Rocky 


Flats and he turned us onto a couple of Health, 


Safety and Environment lab manuals and a QC 


manual. We’re trying to get those documents. 


We’ve got one of them. We’re looking for the 


other one right now. 


 MR. GRIFFON: For the earlier time periods, 


right? 


 DR. ULSH: It’s the earlier -- 


 MR. LITTLE: ’85 -- probably they went into 


effect probably late ‘70s. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Just --


 MR. LITTLE: They were still in effect in the 


early ’80s --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. LITTLE: -- to ’85, ’86. 


 DR. ULSH: We think it might be valid, but we 


can’t say for sure until we actually see the 


documents so we are looking for that. We’ve 


also -- I’ve asked Joe to take a look at that 


particular table that you’re probably looking 


at right now, Joe. 

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 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: Just to tell us, what would a 


dosimetry worker do if he came across this 


problem? What’s --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I -- I think again 


Kathy’s been looking at these and really there 


isn’t any documentation on her investigation or 


follow-up investigation so far. So it’s not 


clear if --


 DR. ULSH: Right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- anything has been done per 


se. 


 DR. ULSH: All the documentation you see is in 


the logbook --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: -- and I'm not sure that there would 


be much past the logbook -- in between the 


logbook and what you see at this point for 


workers’ dosimetry. I don't know if there’s 


anything in the middle. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think that’s the test. 


I mean I believe, you know, there wasn’t any a 


priori assumption on this but looking for 


sources of information and if these sources 


don’t pan out, they don’t pan out. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: So this is on an ongoing basis. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Ongoing, right. Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And I think you’ve -- you’ve 


discussed missing records but there’s -- item 


four in your report, destroyed records? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: This was the trailer issue. 


Just the notion that I think you guys were 


going to follow up and see if there’s any 


record or any history on that. 


 DR. ULSH: We are in the midst of following 


that up right now. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And then item five is missing 


records. Is that different than what we’ve 


discussed already with missing -- 


 DR. ULSH: Is that the ’69 gap? Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: This is the ’69. This is ’69. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: This is ’69. 


 MR. GRIFFON: We kind of discussed it earlier. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: We discussed it earlier. This 


is the specific examples, and I think you 


accounted for the fact that you’re still 


looking at it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Just wanted to go through those. 


 DR. ULSH: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Make sure we didn’t miss 

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anything. I know it’s -- 

 DR. WADE: A lot of people on the edge of their 

seats. 

 DR. ULSH: Mark, it would be really helpful if 

coming out of this meeting, and I’m sure you 


plan to do this anyway, if we can get an 


updated matrix. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Updated matrix. 


 DR. ULSH: Well, just because I mean in the 


SC&A --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- there were several pieces with 


issues in them and it’s getting hard to keep 


track of. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think for all of us to 


sort this out we need to -- to update the 


matrix. 


 DR. ULSH: That would be very helpful. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And -- And I want to understand, 


Karin, the matrix you’ve described. 


 DR. ULSH: Don’t say matrix. 


 MS. JESSEN: I'm sorry. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I know -- I know. Well, the --


the -- the listing that you’ve described. 


 MS. JESSEN: Yeah, the listing. That’s good. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Should that be rolled into this 


process or is that -- is that going to be 


provided to the work group? 


 DR. ULSH: Oh, sure. Sure. Once we finish it. 


I mean keep in mind that we’ve already talked 


about a number of the individuals that are -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. It overlaps I think. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But it has -- it goes further 


than what we’ve discussed here, right? It’s --


 DR. ULSH: It’ll be everything in the petition. 


 MR. GRIFFON: There’s some new issues, right? 


 DR. ULSH: Tony and I had a conversation where 


he gave me four examples, one of which I think 


was already in the petition but three others 


that were not. That’s going to be included in 


there. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So there’s more issues that we 


haven’t discussed necessarily in our work group 


process? 


 DR. ULSH: Well, it falls under the same 


umbrella of -- of issues and data integrity 


issues. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: Different examples. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Different examples, right. 


 DR. WADE: There’s also a power to bring it all 


together and look at it in its totality. 
I 


think that’s what Arjun was trying to say -- 


 DR. ULSH: Right. 


 DR. WADE: -- how you feel about it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I agree. Yeah, I will update the 


matrix then. 


 DR. ULSH: I figured you would. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And I -- I don’t -- well, I’ll 


have to talk with Lew a little bit about where 


Rocky’s going to be on the agenda and whether 


we want more time in the subcommittee for, you 


know, more of these in-depth discussions or -- 


 DR. WADE: What you’re thinking -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- the full committee, yes. 


We’ll check it out. All right. Is there 


anything else before we close? 


 DR. WADE: Thank you all very much obviously 


for a long day but a productive one. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, thanks a lot. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. 


(Whereupon, the working group meeting was 


adjourned at 5:00 p.m.) 

______________________________ 

276 

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 


STATE OF GEORGIA 


COUNTY OF FULTON 


 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 


Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 


above and foregoing on the day of May 30, 2006; 


and it is a true and accurate transcript of the 


testimony captioned herein. 


 I further certify that I am neither kin 


nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 


have any interest in the cause named herein. 


 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 


4th day of July, 2006. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102